Human Cull’s latest release Stillborn Nation is a fantastic slab of top quality Grind chock full to the brim with maximum aggression. I quizzed them for more info…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
We are Human Cull, a 3 piece grindcore band from south-west England.
How did you form?
Human Cull was the refocused effort of a former band. We had a bit of a line-up change after our old drummer left, so I moved from guitars to drums and Edd added playing guitar to doing vocals.
What are your influences?
The usual mishmash of old and new grindcore bands, early (proper) death metal, thrash, crust, heavy metal, lots. Basically anything we think we can get away with chucking into the mix.
What are you listening to at the moment that you want to recommend?
Everyone should check what the UK grindcore scene is putting out at the moment, because there are some excellent bands in there; Fetus Christ, Atomck, The Atrocity Exhibit, Evisorax, Godsick, Oblivionized. There’s a list as long as my arm of lots of different takes on fast noise.
What was your writing process like for the songs of Stillborn Nation?
It was very organic (as cliché as that sounds). Edd and I would hash over ideas ’til something stuck. There were no shortage of ideas so we had to be pretty brutal with it all to weed out the weaker bits. Eventually we got to a point where we were happy with all the new stuff. There’s some re-recordings of older tracks on there too that had slowly changed over the course of playing them live so many times.
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
We try and take a few different themes and construct a bleak narrative about them. It’s a mix of current and often political situations, apocalyptic future sci-fi esque shit and some other bits and pieces, but all from a pretty nihilistic point of view.
In my review I praise the growling of the vocals in particular, comparing them to the characterful delivery of The Red Chord. How much thought went into the vocal patterns and rhythms?
With Edd and I both having to play instruments as well as doing vocals we tried to make sure we could play the songs live as well as just record them. Some are easier than others. The vocals are an important aspect to the texture of our music to us so we try and make them as fitting as possible.
Are you happy with how the album came out?
Yes. We always have set out to make music we’d enjoy listening to and I think we’ve managed it. We recorded with Dan Couch (from Godsick) and the album was mixed by William Blackmon (from Gadget), and they both did a great job of capturing the kind of sound we were after.
What does the future hold for Human Cull?
We’re hitting Europe next month for a tour with Oblivionized, Temples Festival in May, and more writing and recording for some more releases and splits we have lined up. We like to keep ourselves busy.
Thanks!
Wonderbox Metal 