Urtar

Who are you and what role do you have in the band? Where are you from?

Hello there, my name is Atris and I am the guitar player and the main composer of Urtar. We hail from Tirana, Albania.

Who started it and why? What made you start the band and play this particular kind of metal?

We had a need to play some extreme mixture of thrash/death/black. At that time (2016) me and the bassist Baltion were playing with a local death metal band Aten. While we have grown separately listening to most of the extreme metal scene from Europe, Scandinavia, USA etc., ultimately it was a joint decision by me and our vocalist/bassist Baltion and immediately we found our drummer Pol, who is a long-time friend of Baltion.

Your band name appears to derive from the Albanian word urtë, which translates to sage, wise, silent [1

Yes your etymology is correct. Urtar is also a noun in itself in Albanian, meaning a wise elder who presides over various matters of organization of life, and who in the context of the band, as also depicted in the artwork, is also a seer and keeper of old knowledge (of life itself and the stars). Usually he stands alone in select mountains and oversees the development of worlds.

When someone sees your logo, one might imagine music like Mysticum or Myrkskog, music that has a certain industrial sound and clinical touch. What made you pick this kind of logo?

The logo is a depiction of an astral feature, basically a beacon of an old knowledge that was suppressed by various religions after a certain calamity but which is slowly regaining ground with the newer developments of technology.

How would you describe your music?

An aggressive, blackish, atmospheric, doomish mixture, a combination of thrash/black/death metal.

Most of your tracks are rather long, except for the intro and the cover version, and none of these is shorter than seven minutes. What is the reason and idea behind such long compositions?

As a composer I see my music as a river, it begins somewhere and ends somewhere else, it's like a journey where you can experience various emotions.

How do you approach the song-writing in this regard? How do you keep up the tension and atmosphere in them?

Music for us is a way of channeling our emotions. As I mentioned before, it's like a journey where you can experience various emotions, this is not something only for the listener, but for us as well.

How long did it take you to get the album done? The band was started in 2016 and some years have passed since and only in 2021 the first output has seen the light of day. Did you scrape a lot of ideas? Somehow one might imagine that you still have a lot of stuff that only waits to see the light of day.

We composed the songs somehow quick I must say, we played in 2016 a live concert in our hometown Tirana, but we had some setbacks while our vocalist/bassist Baltion moved to Australia, so part of the recordings were done here, other parts and mix-master took place in his studio in Australia.

Is it the lyrics or is it a riff that is the part with which you start composing a song?

For this album we composed the music first.

The three main tracks are not easy stuff and definitely not readily accessible. They are a complex set of facets and styles. Do you break down the tracks in parts or is it more like a flow from the beginning to the end, with little references to earlier parts? What bands have inspired you in terms of song-writing and arrangements?

The composition worked the same like the river going forward, and sometimes meeting the earlier parts. It's easier to mention the scene rather than the bands (because there have been many). Early scene of black metal such as Bathory, Samael etc., to later Scandinavian and northern black metal scene like Dødheimsgard, Mayhem, Emperor, Dissection, Arcturus, Dark Fortress, Nargaroth etc., and surely American and European death metal (old and new school). Surely we have other influences such as classical music and all of the separate experiences that we have as individuals.

If one listens to the music, one might wonder what kind of music in terms of black/death metal you prefer. Are your preferences more modern or rather old-school stuff?

Well I think I covered this answer in the previous answer.

What bands or albums are something you like to listen to now and then?

Sarcofago — The Laws of Scourge \ Tartaros — The Red Jewel \ Primordial — Spirit the Earth Aflame \ Antaeus — Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan \ Limbonic Art — In Abhorrence Dementia

What does your music deal with? Judging from the cover artwork, something with space can be suspected.

Our music and lyrics are something that comes from the bottom of our soul; it deals with the existence, the Universe, life itself and its perseverance, philosophy, the stars, superior being, knowledge, everyday experiences. The artwork is something that in a way includes all of these.

Where do you draw your inspiration from? Books, games, (scientific) magazines?

Well I think I covered this answer in the previous answer.

Rammstein's Benzin appears as a cover song on your debut release. What made you pick this particular track? How would you describe your interpretation of it and how does it differ from the original?

Well, me and Baltion have a thing for Rammstein, and Benzin is a raw and brutal song as it is. He as well has lived in Germany for many years, so it was easy for him to pronounce the German language. The main riff of the song is almost exactly the same; we covered the song in our own style and arranged it as an extreme metal song.

Albania has a rather small metal scene. Can you write a bit about it? How does your band fit into it?

Metal music in general is not very popular in Albania, because most people here are not drawn to metal music; media as well is not in our favor, neither have we had any metal magazines or e-zines. We just play this kind of music because this is our choice despite of the above, and we like to leave our mark in the metal community worldwide.

Are there venues where you can listen to live performances or do you have to travel abroad for it?

There are a couple of places where you can perform live here, but if we need to approach a broader audience we have to travel abroad.

How can people contact you? Where can people listen to your music? Any concerts forthcoming?

Well anyone can find us on every music platform from YouTube, Spotify etc. For the moment being we do not have any shows scheduled, while we are not living in the same state altogether anymore.

Closing comments, if you want ...

Thank you for this interview, and hope everybody enjoys our album. Cheers