Interview by: Mike Liassides

Published: April 9, 2015

Hails! My name is Damian Smith and I sing for Altars of Grief; a doom/death metal band based out of Regina, Saskatchewan. 

Altars of Grief was started by myself and guitarist, Evan Paulson.

Evan and I both played in different, “techy” metal bands and we got to know each other through playing a lot of shows together around the city. At the time, things were beginning to feel pretty strained in the project I was in and I decided to start working on solo material, focusing on more of a funeral doom sound. Coincidentally, around the same time, Evan also posted a clip on Facebook of a demo which would later become “Her Shadow Is The Night”.

I don't think that we ever anticipated that Altars of Grief would eventually end up where it is now. We definitely saw the potential in what we were doing and that finally culminated when we brought in Dylan Pinay and Zack Bellina to complete the line-up. From the beginning we all had a very similar vision, we knew what we wanted to accomplish and we were willing to do what it took to do so. 

I think it really has a lot to do with where in the country you live. For example, in larger cities like Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal, you're going to find that the population is definitely there to support a thriving music scene. Comparatively, however, Regina is a lot smaller. But, in spite of that, there are a lot of very passionate music fans and artists here to whom supporting the scene is everything! 

Furthermore, some of the most diverse and interesting bands that I know of have come out of this province and Central Canada as a whole. To paraphrase our guitarist, Erik Labossiere: “When you've got eight months of -40 degree weather, you learn to get creative!” 

I played guitar for a band called Oblivion's Eye for several years with whom I recorded a full-length and an EP before disbanding. Evan and Dylan both played in a death metal band called Dystopian Wasteland. Zack was briefly involved with a black metal band called Chaotic Maelstrom. And, lastly, Erik was and still is an active member of Nachtterror and also toured extensively in a black metal band called Desecrate Scripture. 

I guess there are a lot of ways to answer this question, if you wanted to get into sub-genres. But, for me, doom is diverse, atmospheric and emotionally compelling music. Our sound is built upon a foundation of heavy, down-tempo riffing filled out by atmospheric choral arrangements. We draw a great deal of influence from black metal, as well and that's also reflected in our writing. 

A lot of what I write, lyrically, is inspired by actual experience. With this project, I've always felt more compelled to write about things that are relatable to people, or that are personal to me. Not that I'm for or against it, I'm just not interested in writing about religion, anti-theism, the otherworldly and things like that. Most of what I write is pretty much grounded in reality and psychological turmoil. 

As for the songwriting process, because we all live quite far apart from one another, a lot of our writing happens individually or through passing demos back and forth online. 

I'm a fan of really sludgy bands like Walk Through Fire, Abandon, Noothgrush and Old Witch. On the other end of that, I'm also a really big fan of hardcore, like Converge, Zao, Norma Jean, Every Time I Die and Oathbreaker. I definitely think that these bands have an impact on not just my writing, but even my approach to vocals and performance. 

We're all also very big fans of Woods of Ypres, My Dying Bride, Celtic Frost, Triptykon, November's Doom, Emperor, Agalloch, etc. and those influences have certainly found their way into our sound, as well. 

Some material on This Shameful Burden had been written prior to the start of the band, but a bulk of it was written in that time span before we recorded it. Honestly, I'm not sure how we pulled it together so quickly. I guess it was just all the excitement of starting a new project and being inspired to write and play. Everything just sort of happened before we knew it! 

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, honestly. We played a great run of shows in central Canada last summer in support of the album's release and since then we've received a number of great reviews and placed on some top, year end lists among some of the best bands in the country. 

I'd say we're all incredibly happy with what we were able to achieve. Moving forward, we intend to experiment more with different elements, like clean singing and to just generally push ourselves to improve. 

It's definitely something we're looking into now. But, as of this time, I think that Hypnotic Dirge is the only place to purchase the CD outside of making arrangements with us through Facebook or e-mail. We've started to see a lot of inquiries for t-shirts and other merch from all over, though, so we hope to get on top of it sooner than later.

I can appreciate the immediacy of downloads, but my personal preference will always be physical media. I like being able to see the presentation and the artwork and to be able to absorb the product as a whole more so than just having a file on my computer or .mp3 player. 

As a newer band, however, I think that downloading - whether legally or not - has it's benefits. Almost immediately following it's release, two different people had uploaded This Shameful Burden in it's entirety on YouTube and a number of other blogs and websites made it available for download. We ended up messaging and thanking some of these people, because we realise how many people probably wouldn't have bothered with the album had they been forced to pay for it. 

The split is scheduled to be released this July and we've got a pretty busy year of shows and festivals ahead of us. So, for now we're not biting off too much more. But, Evan and Erik are already sitting on some new song ideas, so we'll be staying fairly busy! 

I think I speak for the rest of the guys as well when I say that playing shows is our favourite part of what we do. Just recently we had the honour of opening for Dark Tranquility and Insomnium when they came through Saskatoon and that was probably the largest crowd any of us has ever played for. Also, our CD release show in Regina last year comes to mind as one of my favourite live experiences. It was a floor show in a packed room with lots of energy and it was a lot of fun to play!

Of course, the next day of that tour, we played to an empty restaurant with five noise/grindcore bands whose entire combined set times probably weren't even as long as one of our songs. 

Later this year we're playing a couple of cool festivals in Alberta as well as more dates in central Canada. Our goal right now is just to try and branch out even further into places like British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. In the future, we'd love to do a lengthy tour of Canada or even go down to the United States. 

Well, if you've made it this far - thanks for taking the time to read about us!

For more information, you can head over to the Altars of Grief website or stream This Shameful Burden at Bandcamp. 

Also, thanks to you, Mike, for the interview!