Dark Divinity have just released their debut EP ‘Messianic‘ We caught up with Reece from the band for a chat about it.

When/where was the new EP recorded?
The EP was recorded over the course of the last year with the exception of Set in Stone which is an older track. We’re fortunate enough to have a really good home recording setup with Ian’s (drums) soundproofed room at his house which is where drum and vocal tracking was done. All the guitars and bass are done on our respective computers at home. It’s a little less pressure than booking a studio for a weekend or something like that, which is nice in some ways but you also have to be a bit cautious about how it can slow down your momentum when you’re just chipping away at it and dealing with real life in the meantime.

Who produced/engineered the EP? How did the tracks come together in the studio, or at home?
Ian is our home engineer who puts all the tracks together from our various computers and takes, and then we send all the stems off to Cam and Raj at Dynamic Rage in Auckland. In addition to regular mixing for the drum and vocal tracks, they actually re-amp all our guitars which we record entirely clean so we don’t have to spend a bunch of time tone-chasing. All of our tracks are recorded pretty much the same way we play them live, with the odd exception of consistent rhythm tracks where one of us guitarists would drop out to play a lead in a live situation.

Did the shorter format of an EP give you the option to experiment in any way with your sound or with different forms of song-writing?
Not particularly, we weren’t really aiming at an EP while writing these songs, that was an idea from Trench Records who we’re working with in Australia who wanted to get something out ASAP. The main benefit of the EP format is that it just allowed us to cut down to the better songs and be a bit more honest about what’s good enough to make the release.

Was there any specific gear you used to capture that?
The re-amping stuff means a lot of the gear and tone choices are actually quite out of our hands! Back when we started working with Dynamic Rage we just gave them a rough reference of the sound we were going for, and they’d seen us live so they got a good impression of what we’re after from that. I believe they use an axe-fx unit at Dynamic Rage for our guitar tones and have offered us the patches for use in the future if Paul (guitars) and I ever want them/buy one. David (bass) uses a Darkglass pedal for his bass tone.

Is there a particular track or theme that the EP was formed around?
Not particularly a track or lyrical theme, but I think our goal when choosing songs for it was to get the best possible representation of our ‘vibe’, our little weird place in between melodic death metal and black metal where we grab the bits we like from both and put our spin on it.

Where do you see the EPs place in growing an audience online? Do you see it as a progression towards an album or a separate entity?
It’s been good to get a physical release out and we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many CDs we’ve had to ship! As far as growing an audience any longer release always gets taken more seriously than a single in the extreme metal world so there’s more opportunities for reviews and getting around via word of mouth. It’s definitely a progression towards an album because it’s set the standard for us going forward – it’s taken a bunch of songs that we would have had on the album away so their replacements have to meet that standard and that’s an enjoyable challenge.

Which digital platforms is it available on?
Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music & Deezer.

Are you doing any gigs or promotion for its release?
Gigs are very up in the air right now, we had to cancel a little NZ jaunt we had planned for earlier in May because of it, but our current hope is that as NZ keeps things under control and gets into Alert Level 1 that the opportunity to do a show or two promoting it will come up, especially if it helps our local venues get some money flowing in again. Other than that the promotion machine will roll on, with some places due to review the EP soon and some articles on some Australian websites still to drop.