As a hard and fast rule, when you’re a fan of a certain genre of music, you tend to curate a set of sources that supply you with promising new acts, underground releases, and a constant drip feed to your favorite wiggly air. As a death metal fan, one such source that I regularly check is Transylvanian Recordings and around three years ago through this outlet I noticed the debut album of California’s Civerous, Decrepit Flesh Relic in one of their weekly drops. While there wasn’t one particular thing that drew me to the album, I was immediately compelled to check it out. The grand death metal and death doom that emanated from this album was special and I wanted to hear more. Civerous, while still being a young band, had spliced some interesting ideas into their debut album including the use of strings, smart arrangements, and a refined source of pacing. There was a strong identity already woven into their DNA and while it was pretty clearly defined, there was also room for expansion and growth. It seems that a particularly notable underground label saw the same thing in them.
Jump ahead three years and Civerous has just released Maze Envy on their new label home 20 Buck Spin. While I definitely try not to swerve too hard into praising labels above the acts that they sign, this is a label where talent seems to flock and being a part of this family of bands is at this point a badge of honor and sign of quality. I for one thoroughly enjoyed this new offering from Civerous and that sentiment was shared almost unilaterally by every outlet that spent any time with it. I knew that I wanted to reach out to the band for a chat as soon as I heard the new album for a variety of reasons. The leap in quality and expansion of ideas from the new record, as well as seeing other interviews with the band really pulled me even closer to this album. Simply put, this album has been in near constant rotation for me since the first time I heard it and I have no doubt that it will linger longer still.
One of the chief things that Civerous manages to do on all of their albums is aim for the heart. Most of metal’s subgenres are just different ways to get your head to bang, but culling ideas from chamber music, doom metal, and a wee bit of post-rock, Civerous plays with dynamics, tones, and structures in a way that feels as classical as it does brutal. I asked bassist Drew Horton what Civerous hoped first-time listeners encountering them for the first time would feel, the response was simple: ‘As long as you feel something, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. Music’s greatest impact is emotion.’ While this response may come across as obvious, this probably isn’t the most common answer within the metal sphere where often technical aspects of the music become the principal actor and point of focus.
As I stated earlier, this is a band that seems to be outpacing the learning curve on many fronts. Civerous as an entity is only around five years old and considering while Lord Foul, the vocalist, does perform in a few other notable bands, Civerous is far from a supergroup: this is a band that has paved their own way by finding ways to improve and gel at an accelerated rate: ‘Pre-pandemic Civerous was a young band and very different than what it is now. We’ve had some lineup changes and our current iteration has fit together perfectly. We all put a large part of ourselves into this band and it’s great to have 5 close friends be able to make music together.’
That’s the dream isn’t it? Aside from having a great concept and bold cover art for their latest album, Maze Envy, the growth that I keep referencing when discussing this band seems very much to be intentional. When discussing how the band approached the new material and how they navigated changes in the lineup, there was a bit of galvanization that happened on how to think about the new material:
‘The band definitely grew up. We added Aidan (drums) into the band after Decrepit Flesh Relic came out. He approached Andrew (Apparition, Deadstare Audio) as they were already buddies and recorded a drum playthrough of “Herodacy”. We had lost our drummer after the album and it was some insane cosmic brilliance that Aidan had found the band and sent us the video. We all also went through a lot during the pandemic and the first years after, so when we began writing the album Alonso (guitar) wanted to push the complexity and Daniel (guitar) wanted to push the emotion. You can hear the differences between the sections that they write and collaborate on. Some riffs lean between each other and it’s really cool.’
The interplay between technicality and emotional resonance and the finesse with which this is accomplished is one of the chief things that I noticed about Maze Envy and the general direction that the band is headed. It’s also more than likely why so many people have gravitated to this band. Getting a lot of attention fast can be overwhelming and Civerous have stepped into the fast lane by moving to 20 Buck Spin and getting attention from The Internet’s Busiest Music Nerd:
‘It’s really cool. I won’t lie and say that we don’t read what people say, we’re only human and we want to know if people liked it. However, the response it got was definitely more than we expected. 20 Buck Spin was the initial push, being on that label is great because the roster pumps out nothing but great stuff, and the Fantano review was a massive push as well. It’s very humbling to have so many people listening and even more so that they seem to like it.’
We like it. We like it a lot.
Standing out in the underground music arena is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Every week there are hundreds of new releases from artists old and new vying for attention, airplay, and merch sales. It is difficult not only to get a listener’s attention but to keep it for more than a few seconds these days. That being said, bubbling up to the top is also not a matter of just good luck: hard work and artistic merit are responsible for that as well. Civerous have both. Through smartly focusing on the emotional as well as the technical aspects of their music, albums and compositions from this band always feel complete. Their music feels whole. This isn’t the kind of metal that is going to spin the dial to 10 and keep it there for the sake of extremity. Clean guitar tones are interspersed along with genuine beauty via a suite of strings which underscore the peril of and rapture of their often near-ten-minute songs. There are also killer riffs. It’s through this interplay that Civerous has managed to stand out, even on the star-studded label to which they are signed. To that end, where does this band go from here and how to keep the momentum going?
Starting only five years ago, this band has seemingly been going at light speed and they have no intention to ease off of the accelerator: ‘We’re still booking and setting things up for this year and we have more planned for next year. Hopefully the Midwest and East Coast if things go right. We’ll be in Europe at the end of the year for a little more than a week and it’s a great feeling.’
When I asked about the live show, Drew was happy to issue a reassurance as well as a warning: ‘Everything you hear on the album is what we play live and what we practice to. It’s forced me to be better at my instrument.’ Oh and, ‘Depending on the venue, Lord Foul (vocals) may have a chain that he swings around and performs with. This is your warning to not be in reach of the chain.’ So if you find yourself at a Civerous show soon, watch out for spinning chains.
