Another release from Enterré Vivant.

Having just signed with the Transcendance label, this project – a collaboration between France and Japan led by the prolific Erroiak (all instruments/vocals) and Sakrifiss (vocals) – unveils its fourth album, Kurogoku.

The duo also features vocalist Uguisu.

The sound explodes right from the start with Gakid?, the opening track, which offers a deeply old-school, raw, and dark sound, a blend of abrasive production and visceral screams, yet clearly leaves room for softer touches from time to time, such as the moments when the band incorporates ethereal folk elements. The album continues on its course, ultimately settling into melancholy on Ningend?, a track that starts off rather cold with its first acoustic minute before transforming into an impenetrable, oppressive fog where the growls resurface – more unsettling yet also calmer than on the previous track. You can sense the distress in the vocalist’s tone, despite the instrumental’s occasional almost joyful notes, and then it’s with Tend? that the band captivates us at first very simply with keyboards and vocals, but the other instruments eventually emerge and build their darkness as the vocalist delivers his lyrics, ultimately blending French and Japanese to heighten the contrast tenfold. Another interlude of intoxicating keyboards kicks off Chikush?d?, a rather ethereal track and likely the most accessible on the album, which even features some epic, melodious leads that echo the screams; but once again, it is with the most intense darkness that the band continues its journey toward Jigokud?, a track where both musicians contribute to the vocals. It’s also worth noting the special attention paid to the percussion, as the rhythm section is a bit simpler but no less infectious on this very long track, which features musical landscapes that are at times sumptuous while maintaining a certain striking simplicity – even daring to include a break with symphonic roots before the darkness returns. The album concludes with Shurad?, the final track, whose ethereal elements set the tone for the rest of the song, giving it an almost unreal and luminous quality that is quite unusual, yet naturally transports our minds to the far reaches of silence.

The vinyl edition offers a second version of the track Ningend?, which, after having run its course throughout the album, takes an even more dramatic turn, almost flirting with madness as Sakrifiss’ and Erroïak’s inverted vocal parts resonate like raindrops falling to the ground.

On Kurogoku, Sakrifiss and Erroïak’s duo takes us on a truly exotic journey through the six worlds of Buddhism, guided by a seizing brand of Black Metal unlike any other. If you’re not yet familiar with Enterré Vivant, this album will blow you away in no time.

95/100

Version Française ?

A few questions for Sakrifiss, vocalist and lyricist for the Black Metal duo Enterré Vivant, about the release of their new album, Kurogoku.

Hello, and first of all, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. Without using any specific genre labels that might be associated with Black Metal, how would you describe the band Enterré Vivant?
Sakrifiss (vocals): Well, I’d say I’d rather present it not from a musical perspective, but more from a narrative one. Or rather, in terms of concept, it’s true that, well, we do have a unique aspect to the band: there are just the two of us – Erroïak and Sakrifiss (myself) – and we’re both in different places. He’s in France, and as you might know, I’m in Japan. And both of us Erroïak and I had YouTube channels that we still run, by the way. He makes cover videos and sometimes posts his own compositions. I discovered him when I was browsing around a bit, checking out what was out there, and he was doing covers, especially of Summoning. I took note of it, I must have sent him a message at some point, and that’s how we got to know each other. And that was around the time I’d made a video called “Hate in Black Metal” or just “hate” in general, because it was a time when the French government had been talking about banning hate, saying that hate was prohibited on social media, so I thought it was pretty funny that they were trying to ban an emotion. You can try to ban the way it’s expressed, but the message “hate is banned” was so heavily emphasized that it amused me, so I wrote a poem in a video. Erroïak thought the poem would make good song lyrics, so I don’t know if he was serious or if it was just a bit of a joke in his head at the time, but he actually made a track called La Haine (“hatred” in French, ed.). And he said to me, “Sakrifiss, since this is a poem you wrote, do you want to sing a part of the track?” And that’s how we got started. So if you ask me, Enterré Vivant – if someone asks me what it is – at its core, before it even became music, it was already a meeting and a somewhat unlikely beginning in the sense of how it came about… it’s kind of funny, if you will, at its core. But I’d never been part of a band like that before; I’d actually helped write lyrics for Mystic Forest a long time ago. And I ended up getting into it, so we did a collaboration first, and then we said, “Hey, we could do another track,” and we did another track, and then we did three tracks, and then we said, “If we’re on this roll, we have to start a band.” And that’s basically how Enterré Vivant came about, it was a coincidence at the start. Musically, if you ask me, it’s a blend of all our influences, both musical and cultural. In other words, we mix life with what Erroïak has experienced musically and culturally, and my own experiences in Japan, including my musical ones. So, to avoid naming specific styles – even though I know that reassures some people and helps others find their way to our music – we’re hard to categorize because we mix things up. I think we could say we’re very atmospheric, or that we’re epic. But recently, people have mostly told us about the new album that we also have a tendency… The word “depressive” is a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s the word some people use.
They sense nostalgia and a sense of longing.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, melancholic, yeah. And it’s true that we rarely talk about “Nostalgic Black Metal” or “Melancholic Black Metal,” even though it’s a subgenre that could exist—but for some, it manifests as either atmospheric, epic, or depressive, and in my opinion, it’s kind of a fusion of all those styles. There’s a Japanese-inspired aspect – the Japanese-inspired aspect is very important to the band.

Why did you choose the name Enterré Vivant? How did that name come about?
Sakrifiss: It goes back a while. It’s true that the band started out in 2019 – as I was telling you earlier when I talked about the story behind our first song – kind of just for fun. So we didn’t necessarily need a band name at that point. And it wasn’t until we realized, “Okay, now we’re doing several collaborations together,” that we started looking for one. At that point, we hadn’t yet settled on the concept of highlighting Japan in all our songs. In fact, on our first album, which was released on Drakkar Productions, I think there’s only one song that’s truly about Japan, the one called Shunga. But that’s the direction we took afterward. So we didn’t need a Japanese name or a name that blended the two cultures at that point. And when you choose a name, once you’ve gotten started, it’s true that it’s complicated to say to yourself, “We have a new direction, so we’ve found our true identity, therefore we’re going to change the name.” We didn’t necessarily think about or discuss the name change together. So we kept the one we’d chosen, which is Enterré Vivant, because it was, in any case, a name I liked for the duality we represent. As I said earlier, we have a duality in the sense that we’re in two different countries. We’re influenced by different things; we have songs that can be clear and others with darker passages. So I felt that Enterré Vivant captured that aspect of being both dead and still alive – it blended those elements – and it was quite evocative. When I presented it to Erroïak along with other suggestions, that was the one he felt best fit us as well.

Next, please excuse me, I’m probably going to mispronounce this: your fourth album, called Kurogoku, is coming out in a few weeks. How do you both feel about that?
Sakrifiss: You didn’t pronounce it too badly, you pronounced it like a French person! Kuro-Goku. “Kuro” means black, and “Goku” refers to a prison, a kind of prison. Maybe we’ll talk more about it later if you want. I think all bands say the same thing: when you release an album, you have to realize that for most bands, it’s been polished to perfection. You release it once you’ve fine-tuned the sound and reworked the details, so you’re always very confident when it comes out – or even before it comes out – hoping it’ll resonate the way you think it deserves to. While always being aware of that, I think that for us, what happened was that with the previous albums, especially the last two, which were already about Japan, we were also aware of the challenges they might face. I’ll also talk about the first one if you’d like – it wasn’t about Japan – but when we released Les ténèbres ne sont pas formées d’ombre (“Darkness are not made of shadows”, ed.) on Drakkar, that album didn’t have many Japanese influences yet. It was an album we made purely for fun, not to establish our band or our identity – because, as I said, most of the songs had already been written before we even decided to form a band. That’s why you’ll find Haine on it, and Rouge, our earliest tracks. It was more about paying homage to and putting our own spin on the bands we loved. With our first album, we didn’t have any expectations; it was really just the joy of having made an album, and we got caught up in it, and then Drakkar released it. The second album we released, called Shigenso, was about the elements, the four elements, and we wanted to make a complete album, so with one track per element, we absolutely had to have songs that were over 10 minutes long. So we have tracks that were between 11 and 18 minutes long, if I recall correctly, maybe even a little longer. And we knew that even though we were very happy with the result, there would still be people who would have a hard time with tracks that long. We knew that; we expected it. The third album, Akuzaï, which came out a year and a half ago – also on Antiq Records, like the second and third albums – we were also aware of the challenge since we’d chosen to address World War II from the perspective of Japanese victims. We knew it would be complicated because it’s already a heavy, difficult subject that doesn’t necessarily interest people who listen to black metal. Sometimes you just want… There are some people for whom it absolutely has to be an escape into the past, a past, but not a dark past like that, or into fantasy, or into space, or into something deeper in the mind or in the heart, or… but we knew, personally, I sometimes struggle with historical themes; if it’s a story – the history of a country or an era – that doesn’t interest me, I have a hard time with it.

Naturally, you don’t connect with it as much.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s right. So we knew it would be complicated, even though musically there wasn’t a huge difference – but all it takes is for your theme to be like that, a little too niche, let’s say, for you to lose the attention, enthusiasm, or interest of certain listeners. So, every time we’ve released an album up until now – the first, the second, or the third – we’ve been aware of what might be a problem with each one. And what I always take issue with when it comes to bands – because I’m first and foremost a music critic – is whenever I hear or read interviews where they say, “Our new album is better, it’s the best we’ve released so far”… of course, they’re not going to say it’s the worst. But this time, I know it’s the most accessible one while still maintaining our identity. That is to say, the tracks aren’t too long like the second album. We have an identity that we didn’t yet have on the first one, and we have a theme that resonates much more, at any rate, one that won’t put anyone off the way the war-themed one might have. So, I am – we are – and that’s why I’m much more at ease, almost confident, especially since we’ve gotten feedback so far from people who’ve listened to it, and it’s been even better than on the previous albums. So even people who don’t usually like the band might… I’d really encourage them to give it another listen, which is something I didn’t say about the previous ones. With the third album, I think someone who didn’t like the second one wouldn’t have liked the third one either. But this time, I think we’ve really created something much more accessible, while still retaining the band’s unique qualities.

As you just mentioned, if you translate Kurogoku literally, it means “black prison” – I used Google Translate a bit – or “black hell.” What exactly is the concept behind the album?
Sakrifiss: Well, actually, it’s been like this since the EP – not since the second album… I’m going to digress a bit to explain how we got here. On the first album, there was no particular meaning behind the number of tracks, but it’s something we started doing with the EP called Shiki. And Shiki is a name that was later adopted by Sigh. They took the word “shiki,” but it’s actually not that surprising that we ended up with Enterré Vivant and the same name, because “Shiki” is an extremely important concept in Japan – it refers to the four seasons. In fact, it means “four seasons.” “Shi” means 4. And “ki” means season. So, starting with that EP, we decided to work with themes, and the EP had 4 tracks – each 3 minutes long, since, well, a season is 3 months. So each track would be 3 minutes long, as if one minute represented one month, and the EP would last 12 minutes in total, like the 12 months. This tied in with the four elements I was telling you about earlier. So, you’ll find Shigenso, – the “shi” from “four,” like in “Shiki.” And since I liked having that kind of meaning and continuity between each album, the next album, Akuzaï, about World War II, had another underlying theme: “the 10 sins according to Buddhism,” based on a particular branch of Buddhism. That’s why there were 10 tracks – four of which were perhaps just filler for those who didn’t appreciate the more ambient or sample-heavy sections – so there were six actual tracks and four more. That makes 6 plus 4 equals 10. So, for the new album, I wanted to work on something based on a number again. And there are still plenty of possibilities, but this time, I wanted to start with something very different from the World War II story we’d discussed before. I thought, “Something a little older, that might resonate more with Westerners who aren’t necessarily interested in Japanese history,” and we chose the Six Hells. Well, “hells” – we have to be careful here: I rather mean the six realms that are possible after death, according to Buddhism as well. So even though it’s a Buddhist theme, it’s a theme that takes place after death – one you can find in all civilizations, whether you believe in something or nothing at all. We’re always wondering what comes next – or, conversely, whether there might be nothing at all. That’s why there are six tracks – one for each realm, in fact.

That’s interesting because there’s one question I always ask that also involves numbers: Can you sum up this album in just three words?
Sakrifiss: Just three words, really?
Three words, exactly.
Sakrifiss: Well, the summary is very simple. In three words – since you’re not leaving me much of a choice – can I count “BM” (“Black Metal,” ed.) as a single word? “BM,” “Erroïak,” “Sakrifiss.”
That was indeed very simple – congratulations!
Sakrifiss: It’s simple, but ultimately it says it all – since I can’t limit it to three words, it lets me be much more expansive, because everything that defines Erroïak is in this album, and everything that defines Sakrifiss is in this album, which revolves around BM. I managed to pull it off, more or less!

Congratulations! As you told me, this is the album you consider the most accomplished in terms of the Enterré Vivant concept. How did the songwriting process go for Kurogoku, and what changes and developments did you notice?
Sakrifiss: Ultimately, the way we go about things hasn’t changed. There’s no change. We’re still using the same method. Since we work remotely, I start by working on the concepts, as I mentioned earlier, figuring out what the album will be about. Once I’ve made that decision, I discuss it with Erroïak, give him the direction, and tell him I’d like there to be six tracks, so he’ll need to do this much… Together, we know exactly what we’re doing – he also has his own suggestions about how long each track should be, more or less, and the moods that will come with it – and then we work track by track. So he got through the first two very quickly, because originally there was another project; he already had ideas for melodies and so on, but in the end it fit well – it really fit the theme we’d chosen – the six kingdoms. And especially since there are six kingdoms, it’s not just “hell, hell, hell.”

Yeah, there are things that are relatively different!
Sakrifiss: Exactly, so you have tracks that work better with a fast tempo, while others are slower. So even what Erroïak had come up with, ideas he’d thought through without necessarily knowing the themes in advance, could work on one track or another. So once he has an idea for a melody, he works on the composition and sends me a sort of demo. Depending on the situation, I might already have the lyrics I’ve sent him, or he might just have the concept – or he might even have the lyrics in French or Japanese – but after that, we don’t record them right away; we need to have the melody and the tracks first. And only then do we work on the vocals – where to place them and who will sing them – since what makes us unique is that we both handle the vocals and share them between us. This helps us avoid having the same vocal style from start to finish on the album. We vary it; we try to vary it (especially on my end) since I’m not a singer like Erroïak, Erroïak is a real Black Metal singer. You can really call him a singer, a vocalist, whereas I’m more of a bellowing, interjecting type, I’ve always loved that in Black Metal. What I love is being called out. But not just to act like a nutcase – it has to be relevant. Why is it happening at that specific moment? It might be a scream, but it has to be… I was going to say spontaneous, but it also has to fit into the story the song is telling.
Yeah, it has to stay consistent.
Sakrifiss: On the other hand, I realize I’ve toned it down compared to the last two albums, but it could come back – though people had mentioned something about a frog or a crow singing, things like that. But it’s the same thing—it made sense at the time it appeared. Now, I just have some vocal effects, but it doesn’t go as far as a frog, so you’re looking at something more like a tadpole.
Which isn’t bad at all!
Sakrifiss: Not bad, but I think… you’ve listened to it, right?
Absolutely!
Sakrifiss: So it seems to me that there aren’t any…
No, I didn’t spot any animals in it, don’t worry!
Sakrifiss: There are animals, but as samples.
Yeah, exactly. But I didn’t spot an elephant coming to tell us a story.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s right. A Sakrielephant or a Sakrifrog. That’s fine. But it’s something that could come back if it were necessary for the lyrics. Oh, you’ve changed color, you’re now purple!
Seems like my camera is getting a little creative.
Sakrifiss: Well, it’s no big deal. Look at my T-shirt, too.
Oh great, now we match.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, I drooled, maybe I drooled on you.
Oh, that’s clever!
Sakrifiss: There you go, did I answer your question?
Absolutely.
Sakrifiss: There you go, and then we add little details. After the vocals, sometimes there are samples, sometimes there are traditional instruments that I want Erroïak to reposition. And sometimes, we rework the whole thing, that’s what happened, which is why we have a bonus track on the vinyl. I wanted to try the opposite of the vocal arrangement we’d chosen – the track called Ningendo, where there’s a repetition of “J’aurais pas dû, j’aurais pas dû, j’aurais pas dû” (“I shouldn’t have” in French, ed.). In the end, I don’t remember which was the first version, whether I was the one singing the “I shouldn’t have” parts and then the sort of… well, they’re not really choruses because they’re more like shouts or lyrics. And it was Erroïak who ended up doing them on the CD version, but since I really wanted to see how the other version would sound that is, with Erroïak singing “I shouldn’t have” and me singing the rest, we figured, “We might as well include this version as a bonus track on the vinyl,” since, you know how it is with vinyl – depending on the running time…
Yeah, there are several sides.
Sakrifiss: We wanted to avoid having one side end up sparse or empty, so we were able to add it there.

As we mentioned, the band’s sound is obviously rooted in a blend of Black Metal and Japanese folklore. Are there any bands you’d cite as influences for the current Enterré Vivant, for the album?
Sakrifiss: Well, I really need to also be Erroïak’s voice, since he’s the one who composes the songs, he handles all the musical aspects, including the performance. I’m more into the concept and the ideas, guiding things toward what feels coherent to me – the lyrics – and, as we were saying earlier, half of the vocals. As for him, when he composes, he isn’t familiar with Japanese music, so he can only draw on what I sometimes share with him – sometimes I’ll say, “Here, look, there’s this kind of theater” – Japanese theater music, whether it’s Kabuki or Nô. I share things like that with him, and sometimes it can influence his use of traditional instruments. But his foundation, and this is what he builds upon later, his foundation is bands like Summoning, of course. We’ve talked a lot about Windir, but I think he was influenced by Windir on this album rather indirectly – he didn’t realize it himself, and it wasn’t until the album was finished that he could say “I’m influenced by Summoning,” but listeners have told me so far that they hear a lot of Windir in it, and he acknowledges that, as well as Moonsorrow. Those are the three key bands. I think it’s true that if you’re a fan of any of these bands, you should definitely give our music a listen, in my opinion. But for my part, what I’d aim for is more of a Magane-style vibe, and that’s what I’m trying to bring. Magane is one of the only Japanese bands to have incorporated their authentic culture and singing style into their songs; they only released two albums. They were active in the ’90s, but they mainly put out demos in the beginning. Originally, they actually had a French name: Mortes Saltantes. Magane ended up sounding more Japanese than expected. And they eventually called it “Yomi Metal.” So it’s Black Metal with Japanese elements. If people were to say that Enterré Vivant is Yomi Metal, it would be an immense honor, since that would reference what Magane was originally doing. Then, of course, there’s Sigh, but I think Sigh was more Avant-Garde and used a lot of marching band music throughout much of their career. It’s a bit more recent, I think, I believe they’ve started using Japanese lyrics and traditional Japanese instruments.

Exactly! I think he told me a month and a half ago that for the last two or three albums, he’s been open to using traditional instruments rather than just samples.
Sakrifiss: We actually know there’s no… we’re not responsible at all, but it roughly corresponds to the period when we started Enterré Vivant, so it’s great – we’re working hand in hand with Sigh to at least showcase Japanese culture in music and from a Japanese perspective. What I mean by that is, there are a lot of foreign bands who try to do this, who are interested, who are passionate about Japan, like the American band Saidan. There are also quite a few bands that try to incorporate anime visuals or samurai imagery, etc… So, some of them are good, but often they quickly fall into either clichés or the “I spent two weeks sightseeing in Japan and now I understand Japan” mindset – and unfortunately, they scratch the surface but don’t go deep enough. You can tell they don’t necessarily understand it, at least when it comes to the themes. It’s complicated, too, you have to do your research; it requires a lot of effort. I’ve been in Japan for 26 years now – 25 or 26. And we’re always discovering new things; there are several stages to it. Even with your own culture, there are always aspects you don’t fully grasp, or a story or historical period you’re less familiar with. So we’re always learning interesting things.

 

That leads perfectly into the next question: since you live in Japan, what attracts you to the country’s culture, and how do you draw on that culture to develop your own artistic influences – and, by extension, to shape Enterré Vivant’s music?
Sakrifiss: I was already interested in Japan before I even came here. I didn’t come to Japan to work like many people do – they go to a country they didn’t necessarily choose for a job, discover it, and then either fall in love with it or not. My interest began back when I was still in France. From that point on, I was interested in Japanese cinema, its history, its culture, and its literature, in a general sense, but especially certain themes. I had to study these subjects because they were part of my academic coursework. So I studied Japanese while I was in France, and there were courses on Japanese culture and art – but that didn’t resonate with me at all, I had no idea what it was all about, because you can love Japanese video games and Japanese cartoons, but that doesn’t give you all the information about every historical period. So it was a very formative experience – very interesting. And then I went to study in Japan. I spent a year there, which allowed me to see what life was like – especially today – because when you study the past, you don’t really know what life is like now, and it’s not that you’re biased; it’s just that you only have one piece of the puzzle.
Yeah, that’s for sure, and of course, studying a culture and actually living there are two completely different things.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, it’s totally different. And then there’s also the fact that you can build a social circle here – friends, a support network – because a lot of people stay within their country’s community, or even the American – let’s say English-speaking – community. There are a lot of people here who come and don’t make the effort to learn the language, so they gravitate toward this community, which is actually quite large, and you end up surrounded only by foreigners of all nationalities who all speak English all the time. Right from the start, when I was in college, that was something I wanted to avoid, and it’s true that scholarship students immediately split into two groups. And the Westerners tended to gravitate toward the group that spoke English all the time. So I was with the Chinese and Koreans, who came to Japan because it was practically a matter of survival – for them, it was their future, it wasn’t just for fun. They had to master Japanese because they needed to find a job, so being in that group really helped me make rapid progress.
There was a different kind of motivation.
Sakrifiss: There was a different motivation. And then, as I said earlier, you discover things as you go along; sometimes you think you’ve figured something out, and then you realize you were wrong – there’s always something more to it in Japan, it’s true that there’s always something hidden behind the surface. There are often people who give up because they’ve realized they were wrong, but in fact, they’re still wrong in thinking they’re wrong. What I mean is, their first step when you come to Japan is saying “People are super nice; everyone is nice.” And then there’s always a period where you realize they’re nice because it’s part of their upbringing, not because they’re inherently nice, but because they’re supposed to be nice. And you have French people – but also people of all nationalities – who get stuck there, saying, “It’s hypocrisy; they’re nice, but they don’t really mean it,” and they get stuck there. And then they don’t dig any deeper, even though there’s actually this next step: yes, they’re nice because they’re forced to be in public, but when you dig deeper, you realize that, well, ultimately they really are genuinely pleasant people who wouldn’t spit on you if they had the chance. They’re nice because they have no choice, but they’re also genuinely nice. But during that period, that moment when you ask yourself that question, it’s true that a lot of people stop making an effort afterward. “There’s hypocrisy, and I don’t like it, Japan is all about appearances.” You just have to scratch the surface a little for everything to come crashing down.
That’s the famous Tatemae, as I recall.
Sakrifiss: You know it well, you should’ve said so right away! “You know, Sakrifiss, in France, everyone knows about that now”!
Well, not everyone, exactly, but it’s true that if you have even a passing interest in Japan, it’s a topic that comes up very often, that famous “hypocritical kindness”, and in the end, yes, quite a few people stop there.
Sakrifiss: They stop there. It’s a stage, I think it’s an inevitable one, but you have to move past it. It’s like saying to yourself, “In Japan, you can’t make friends”, you can’t make friends based on the French concept. We have a concept, it’s like love. It’s as if they were saying, “Japanese people don’t French kiss; out in the subway, they don’t love each other.” It would be like you saying that—you realize how silly that is. It’s just that in France, we accept making out… Damn, that’s a word from another century! (laughs)
Don’t worry, we’ll get it anyway!
Sakrifiss: I fell for it. “Smack”? No, it’s worse.
It is worse, indeed!
Sakrifiss: So how do you say “kissing” then?
Just kissing, actually – plain and simple!
Sakrifiss: So in France, we don’t hesitate like that. Here it’s expressed differently, but simply not in public. So everything I’ve discovered about Japan – I want to show what I’ve managed to understand about Japan, which I hope is at a higher level than what people know just from traveling or staying for a year or two. After 25 or 26 years, there are things I try to talk about, and I don’t do it by lecturing or saying, “That’s just the way it is.” I’m still asking myself questions, though, in, uh, in the albums.

Sakrifiss: If you only knew how much the hood stinks now, after 10 years, it’s still the same one… It used to be scented at one point, but now it smells like perfume because I dropped a bottle of it. And now, no, it doesn’t smell good.
You need to buy more perfume!
Sakrifiss: Either buy more perfume… I tried making a new one, but there’s always a slight difference around the eyes, the mouth, or the bow, so it makes me look different – it doesn’t give me the same look.
I get the concept!
Sakrifiss: So it’s true that I tend to talk a lot.
Yeah, but that’s okay because it’s interesting. So it doesn’t bother me at all – it’ll just mean more work for me transcribing, but that’s fine.
Sakrifiss: Can’t you ask AI?
Well, you can, but you always have to double-check because it won’t tell you who’s speaking, and sometimes it’ll mess up words – for example, you mentioned Magane to me, and I’m certain there’s no way it could ever spell “Magane” correctly (it had actually written “Magé,” ed.).
Sakrifiss: Magane is easy, right? It’s MAGANE.
I didn’t know the first name they first had, but I knew Magane – and I’m certain the AI won’t come up with Magane. So it’ll spell it out as two separate words, and some random nonsense will pop up out of nowhere and that might be funny, but that’s not the point.
Sakrifiss: It won’t be much use.

Exactly. Next question: I saw in the press kit that it does indeed include Erroïak and you, but I also saw a mention of a vocalist named Uguisu – if I’m pronouncing that right.
Sakrifiss: This time, you didn’t pronounce it quite right. It’s Ugu-isu. I can’t remember how to say the name of that bird in French – actually, I picture it in Japanese (the Japanese bush warbler or Japanese nightingale, ed.).
So, how did you guys collaborate, and how did you bring her into the project?
Sakrifiss: It’s kind of… you know when you have really, really good recipes: they give you the ingredients but always say, “But I’m not going to tell you the secret ingredient.” There’s a secret ingredient, that little something – you don’t know what it is, and they don’t want to tell you what it is. Like the Big Mac sauce – we’ll never know. It’s a bit like that on our end – even though we did include an illustration of her in the booklet, we want to keep her a mystery. She doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. The only thing I can assure you, because if someone told me that, I’d have my doubts too, is that she’s not an AI, she’s not a robot, I just want to put your mind at ease on that. She’s truly a very talented singer who, on top of that, manages to nail her vocal parts in one take – just like that, it’s done – and she can sing, too, I don’t know if you can tell just by listening to the tracks, but I can, because I know the lyrics, in French and Japanese. So we have a rare gem who, on top of that, I think really adds something special to these two tracks on the album.
Okay. So that’s the secret ingredient in the recipe – noted.
Sakrifiss: It’s the secret ingredient – I don’t think we’ll say any more about it. And if you search for “Uguisu” online, you’ll only find the little bird. You won’t find her, because it’s a name she chose specifically for the band, so even if she’s been part of other projects, it won’t be the same. It’ll be just as mysterious.
Okay, we’ll keep that a mystery, we just know she’s a real person, and that’s fine with me.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s what’s important. And it’s not her voice on the first track, because the first track is Gakidô, which features a musical instrument, and people told us, “Oh, she’s the one who appears!” but no, it’s just that the instrument is in a pitch close to a female voice, but that’s not it. Anyway, it’s noted – the two tracks where she appears are listed in the booklet, so normally you can’t go wrong.
So you can’t get it wrong – you just have to know how to read music. (laughs)
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s true – in Black Metal, it’s not exactly straightforward. (laughs) Popopo.
It’s like shooting with live ammunition.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, let’s put it that way.

New question: Do you think you’ve made progress – even though, based on what you told me earlier, I think that’s the case – have you grown as musicians and songwriters with this new album?
Sakrifiss: Erroïak has made tremendous progress, yes. I’m not saying this as Sakrifiss, I’m saying it because every time he says, “With my current skills, I can do this, I can do that,” so he’s well aware that things come more easily to him than before. Especially since he’s reworked all the tracks from the first album. It’s sold out – the first album, which was released on Drakkar, went out of stock pretty quickly, so… It’s a project we have in the works; we’re supposed to re-release the first album. But I’m someone who’s a bit, you know, Old School, a collector and all that, so I think it’s good to reissue an album that’s out of print, but not in the exact same version, so that people who bought it back then can say, “I have the original version, the original one,” and so reissue it with either visual differences or, if possible, a new sound – especially these days, when if you want the original version, you can find it on Bandcamp, you can find it digitally; you could find the original version. There are people who hate that – when Dimmu Borgir or Covenant re-released their old albums in remastered or even reworked versions, it was as if it were a betrayal. But ultimately, for me, it’s a fresh perspective. Back then, it doesn’t mean it was bad. We’re not going back on what we did; it’s just that we said, “If we were to do it now, this is what it would sound like.” And that doesn’t erase the album as it was before.

Yes, that’s for sure, but at the same time, as you just pointed out, we’ve inevitably improved over time. So there are things that are simpler, that are easier to pull off, even in terms of recording and technology.
Sakrifiss: Yes, but be careful, I’m someone who doesn’t believe that a musician’s skill level automatically raises the quality of an album. Maybe Erroïak thinks that, but I’m very much into… what some people hate let’s just say, not the “feeling,” otherwise MaxYme will come and rap our knuckles (laughs). So that’s why I don’t use that word, but it’s spontaneity, it’s passion, and it comes across so strongly in Black Metal that sometimes you have a higher technical level, but you can still hear it – now you hear a musician, whereas before you heard, uh, someone just letting loose whatever they wanted to let loose. So that’s why both versions are important to me. That doesn’t mean the new one will be better—it just means it’ll be made with the artist’s vision or resources at that particular moment.

I totally get the concept! You have a new label called Transcendance. How did you end up collaborating with… I think her name is Marie.
Sakrifiss: It’s Marie, yes. A lot of people probably know her – maybe not for her label, which is a shame because she has a lot of great releases – but for her bands.
Yeah, she’s got quite a few projects, too.
Sakrifiss: She has a lot of projects, and they’re all exceptional – like Vertige, just to begin. A lot of people remember it because the name was funny, but it’s J’ai si froid. It’s a memorable name. And then she has a lot of projects she’s involved in, there are some with Déhà, for example, the Belgian artist who also contributed to our new album by enhancing the mix, which was originally done by Erroïak and then polished with Déhà’s touch. We’ve been fans of her work at Transcendance for a long time. Even back at Drakkar, things went very well. With the first album at Drakkar, there were no issues – if the album is out of stock, it’s either because the promotion was good or because not enough CDs or vinyls were released. But when you’ve sold everything – well, let’s choose our words carefully, but we have to use that word – when everything’s gone. But we couldn’t stay with Drakkar because we’d shifted toward a Japanese-style sound. They probably would have accepted it anyway. Noktu (the label’s head, ed.) was very happy that the album sold well, but I think we had to be honest. For me, a label is very important. Just recently, when I was talking about Transcendance, someone posted on Facebook, “Who even has labels in 2026?” – that kind of comment…
Yet there are still plenty of them out there!
Sakrifiss: And then, for me as a listener, it’s incredibly important because with a label, I’ll take an interest in its releases since I know what its focus is. And because of that, if the band had stayed independent and self-produced, wouldn’t I have missed out? I might have missed out. How could I have found out about it with the sheer volume of stuff coming out? We miss out on things that are actually worth checking out. So I need them – I, too, need labels as a listener because I buy physical copies, and if I buy directly from the band… I’d love to buy from every band, but that means buying one album, then another, then another.
Even just with shipping costs, it really starts to add up…
Sakrifiss: Japan isn’t exactly straightforward. So having a label or a distributor to handle the albums is still incredibly important to me. And supporting labels also supports a lot of artists. Because a label will also recommend working with an illustrator, that sort of thing. It supports illustrators too, so it supports pretty much everyone – at least, I hope so.
A label is supposed to be at least a team, or if not, one person managing it with partners, after all.
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s right, and then does the musician also have to – good for him if he’s capable of it – take charge of promotion, try to find people who want to review his work? He doesn’t have the network.
That’s a whole other job!
Sakrifiss: It’s a different line of work: he has a network, and that makes all of this possible, so I think it’s important. And so, for me, it’s also important for a label to have a clear direction. And Drakkar wasn’t really… even though I love Drakkar, but our music just didn’t fit with Drakkar anymore, whereas Antiq was totally on the same page. Antiq loves concepts; they love it when a band has its own vision, and they believe the music is just as important as the theme and the story the band tells. So that was important. After two albums, there weren’t any issues with the albums’ production, but there were a few minor hiccups with people who had pre-ordered and then told us, “We’re having trouble communicating with Antiq”; sometimes the album doesn’t arrive right away, so we got some slightly negative feedback. If the people who support us say, “If the next album comes out on Antiq, I’ll hesitate to buy it” – and unfortunately, that’s something I’ve been told. It was tough because, from a personal standpoint – especially for Erroïak, who has other bands on Antiq – it was something that really bothered him; it’s normal, he doesn’t want to upset the people he gets along with. So we don’t have any personal issues. And we got this feedback from our community. We thought about which labels might still fit our direction. And as I was saying earlier, we’d decided that the new album would be more accessible, more direct, less convoluted, and so on… I had three or four labels in mind, but only one of them was in France. But is this the right time to say to ourselves, “Enterré Vivant could go on a European label”? As for Transcendance, I wasn’t sure if they’d be interested – plus, Marie had never said, “I like what you’re doing with Enterré Vivant.” I’d never heard her say that, even though I was in touch with her for other discussions – about her music, the Black Metal scene, and so on. So I was thinking, “What about Naturmacht…?” You know, that’s the label that put out Grima, for example.

Yeah, I totally get it!
Sakrifiss: By the way, the T-shirt I’m wearing is also from Naturmacht (he’s wearing an Astral Alchemy T-shirt, ed.). They recently signed that band. So, shouldn’t I try to find something similar to Antiq, but on a European level? And then I tell myself, “No, we do have a big fan base in France,” even though we have a lot of listeners outside of France, right? we have a lot of reviews in languages ranging from Spanish to Finnish, people based in Mexico who’ve made videos about the band – we have all that – but it’s true that our main fan base is in France. People who are going to buy the album, if they’re in a foreign country, it might cost them more, etc… And when I reached out to Marie, she told me, “You know, I’m not really a fan of what Enterré Vivant does.” I told her, “Wait, we have some new songs.” When I sent her the new songs, she fell in love with what we were doing, which proves to me that there really is a significant difference. Maybe not in terms of skill level, but definitely in terms of atmosphere and the final result between the previous album and this one. She said, “If it’s this one, we just need to rework the sound,” because for her, Erroïak’s wasn’t good enough.
So that’s why you called Déhà?
Sakrifiss: “With Déhà, we can work on it, we can improve it even more, and if you’re okay with us working with Déhà…” And then it wasn’t a problem at all – well, okay, let’s go for it, fine [laughs]. So he was able to polish up what needed to be polished to make it even more… to bring out a power that maybe wasn’t quite there with just our own resources. That’s how we ended up sticking with her – plus, she was really enthusiastic about our music, and coming from someone who wasn’t before, that’s pretty convincing! And she’s someone who doesn’t, put out 10 or 15 bands a year, you know?
Yeah, she picks them well!
Sakrifiss: I think this year she’s got, like, four or five releases at most. There was her own band, Vertige, right at the start of the year; there was Enoid two or three months ago; and I think she’s releasing… well, no, I’m sure she’s releasing Enterré Vivant – I’m not kidding (laughs). And there’s another band she hasn’t announced yet, so I’m not going to announce it myself, but they’re releasing something this fall.

So yes, indeed, it’s a mark of quality, and of course I imagine there’s a bit of pride in having… I won’t say, converted someone, but convinced them?
Sakrifiss: Convinced, yeah. And then the good news that our community has been waiting to hear, is that the CDs and vinyls are ready. The album is coming out… it hasn’t been released yet (the interview was conducted on September 22, ed.), but officially, everything is ready; everything has arrived – I saw the CDs just a little while ago. Two hours ago, she received them; she sent me a short video to show me that everything was in good condition, just as we’d imagined. And as for the vinyls, she got a call telling her they were on their way too, so everything will be ready by October 2.
So that’s perfect, the only thing that won’t be ready is my video, but that’s okay (laughs).
Sakrifiss: It’ll be out by the time you listen to it!

Next question: I’m not saying I’m going to stir up a controversy, but would you be interested in playing on stage with Enterré Vivant?
Sakrifiss: Of course, of course! That said, there are a lot of constraints, so it’s something that would’ve been unimaginable, I think, just a few years ago though who knows what might cross my mind… Basically, I’ve always said I’d never make music; I’d rather just be a listener and then, in the end, I dove right in. So it’s not unimaginable. It requires having musicians; it requires a lot of things. I think that if we could actually find the right people and I came to France, it could be… as we’ve seen, when you want to organize something, all you need is a good network, and I think we know enough people to try to put something together… We’d have to see what form it would take. If it were tomorrow, it would be an unplugged set, why not Enterré Vivant? But it still requires some preparation.
I can definitely see that, because beyond writing the songs and recording them, you have to rehearse them – and especially when there’s more than one person, you have to rehearse to be in sync.
Sakrifiss: And on top of that, we’re doing it remotely, so there are a lot of hurdles to overcome to make it happen, but if it were even remotely feasible, we’d already have done it. Another problem is that Erroïak and I are both terrible at memorizing lyrics. He does fine when it’s in French, but when he sings in Japanese, he often has to read the lyrics. He doesn’t speak Japanese natively, but he practices his Japanese parts, so it’s complicated to learn. In your own language, with your own song, it’s fine, but memorizing when it’s in a language you don’t master…
So in the end, it’s more about memorizing the sounds?
Sakrifiss: I’d say that, but maybe he could actually do it – he might give me a hard time about it later. “You said I couldn’t do it, but I can!”
He’ll pull the tail over your head. (laughs)

Do you already have any plans for the future of Enterré Vivant after the release of the new album?
Sakrifiss: As for Enterré Vivant, no, because we both have other projects that we haven’t finished yet – and we absolutely have to finish them. Once we get started, we go all in, we throw ourselves into it. So we shouldn’t start anything else; we really shouldn’t. And anyway, we didn’t start working on the new album until after the previous one was released. People tell us, “You’re back so quickly,” because Akuzaï came out a year and a half ago, but we actually finished it two years ago. And between when we finished it and its release, I think there were more than six months, because the label had other releases to handle first, they just couldn’t…
Yeah, it’s a scheduling issue.
Sakrifiss: It’s normal – you have to understand that – but it’s also incredibly frustrating when you’ve finished everything and can’t wait to let people hear it, only to be told, “It’ll be out in six months.” That’s way too long! And that’s why we still waited for the album to come out before getting back to work on the next one. But in the end, it wasn’t a year and a half for us – there was much more than a year and a half between the two albums. We ended up waiting at least… For us, the previous album had been finished for eight or nine months by the time we started working on new songs. In the meantime, we each work on our own projects. He has a lot of musical projects, and as for me, I absolutely have to – and I apologize to Émilien at Éditions des Flammes Noires, because my second book is finished, and he’s been making suggestions about how to structure it, but I’ve been so immersed in the album that I haven’t had the time. So once the album is out, I’ll finalize the second book with Émilien.

Speaking of which, you’ve made another great transition here, since you came to France earlier this year to meet with subscribers, among other things. Well, not just subscribers, readers too!
Sakrifiss: They were mostly meet-and-greets organized with the publishing house, Les Flammes Noires. I don’t think I would have dared or had the confidence to say, “Yeah, I’m going to hold meet-and-greets with subscribers to my YouTube channel.” That’s just not how I think. I’m eager to meet people, but not to say, “Look, I’m an influencer, come to meet me.” That was absolutely not the concept or the idea. So if it was perceived that way…

Well, no, it wasn’t perceived that way at all – it’s just that I don’t know how to express myself, so everything’s fine (laughs).
Sakrifiss: No, not necessarily because of you, but it’s true that wasn’t the original plan—it’s more of a common practice in publishing. We released a book, and if it can help the publisher get the word out, it’s important to meet people. And after that, I know a lot of people came because they recognized the videos, and it was a pleasure to meet all those people. But originally, I was there mainly because of the book. And then, it turned out to be exceptional. We stopped in Lille, there must have been about 80 people there. It was pretty impressive to be able to talk with people I’d sometimes already met through usernames, online messages, or on forums over a long period of time. There were also people from bands who’d come to perform, or bands I knew, whom I got to meet and chat with. Afterward, I think I scared everyone because when I start talking after two hours, there’s a big drool stain right there, and I realize that now; I hadn’t noticed it at first. When I saw the photos, I saw that I was absolutely drenched, and that explains the slightly freaked-out looks on the kids’ and women’s faces. That’s why I didn’t “seal the deal” – I went home alone.

You didn’t “seal the deal,” but at least the encounters were worthwhile!
Sakrifiss: Yeah, that’s nice. And in Paris, too, there were some nice surprises – very different kinds of people showed up. In Nantes, though, it was quite an adventure because it was the day of the big snowstorm in France. So Émilien drove me there (he lives pretty close, so he didn’t need to go back to Paris) but the next morning, we had to struggle to find a train. Here’s Sakrifiss on the train. And I’m still grateful for that incredible stroke of luck: there’s a… I’ll call him an ally who had come to Lille – a guy named “Blut,” whom some of you might know – and who, by chance, happened to be in Nantes that day, though not at all for the same reasons as me. But he’d been in Lille, and he told me, “I’m in Lille, and I know what time a train will leave – in any case, the train at such-and-such a time will leave; the one you took – I’m not sure it’ll leave.” So thanks to him, I was actually able to catch a train. I was heading back to Japan the next day, so I really needed to catch that train. So I’m giving him a hi!

We’re nearing the end, and the last two questions are open-ended. The first one: since you’re eager to perform on stage with Enterré Vivant, are there any bands you’d like to share the stage with?
Sakrifiss: I’m going to answer this from a very personal perspective. These are pretty energetic bands, I imagine?
So feel free to give totally unrealistic answers and bring a few people back from the dead, there’s no problem!
Sakrifiss: We’d have to bring Magane for sure. Just because it’s a band I’ve been following since the beginning and I know they tour a lot; personally, I’d love for Bovary to be there, that’s the name that comes to mind off the top of my head. I think they put on great sets; they do wonderful things. And even though there are tons of bands out there, I’d say mostly younger or current ones, rather than bringing back old ones, I’m not sure if Magane is touring at all. But as for French bands, I’d go with either Bovary or more contemporary acts like Houle or Galibot, I think they’re great, and Enterré Vivant does have a pretty modern sound while still staying true to Black Metal.
I’m all for this lineup, I’m on board, and I want to be the photographer there!
Sakrifiss: Ah, there you go, we’re waiting for you!

Last question: Could you compare Enterré Vivant’s music to food?
Sakrifiss: Food? You really didn’t know what else to ask (laughs)! Where I live in Fukuoka, Japan, there’s a specialty called mentai. It’s very Japanese because I’ve never heard of it in France – it’s not caviar, but you could compare it to caviar in the sense that it’s fish roe. And it costs a fortune, just like caviar. There’s a mentai specialty where you can put it… you can eat it with anything, with rice, pasta, whatever you want. And there’s one where you put it in bread, like French bread, and they call it “Mentai France.”
Okay. So, a fish roe sandwich.
Sakrifiss: A fish roe sandwich. Enterré Vivant, Erroïak in France, Sakrifiss in Japan. So Enterré Vivant would be this combination of French-style bread with Japanese-style mentai. That’s why I compared it to “Mentai France.”
That’s a very logical answer, too!
Sakrifiss: I’m more consistent than people think! (laughs)
I would never have claimed that you aren’t!

That was my last question. I’ll leave the closing remarks to you, and thank you for your time!
Sakrifiss: Above all, I wanted to tell you I really appreciate it, it’s important that you took the initiative to ask me for an interview. This time is always important; answering in one sentence or two is something I just can’t do. You listened carefully – the questions weren’t just about the album, but really went a little beyond that framework. Being able to talk a bit about the early days is important, I think Enterré Vivant is trying to build on what’s come before – meaning that ever since the second album, even though the first one laid the groundwork (and those beginnings are still important), we’ve been trying to create something new and evolve. We don’t base our work on feedback, but we do evolve nonetheless. And I say that because I’d like to wrap up by saying: if you didn’t like a previous album, I think you should still give this one a listen – you should give this album a chance. There are a lot of bands like that where people say, “No, I’ve already listened to their last album and I didn’t like it.” But in this case, Marie was won over. If Marie was won over, Brouillard was won over. So it might just work! And Déhà was won over too, so thanks to everyone for giving it a listen.