Ne Obliviscaris’ founding members Tim Charles (violin, vocals) and Xen Oyr (vocals) talk to Christina Rowatt about the song by song story of their acclaimed new 2017 album, Urn in a new episode of the Void with Christina YouTube channel and podcast. Ne Obliviscaris is a Melbourne-based band known for a unique alchemy of progressive and extreme metal elements and a devoted worldwide following.
Tim Charles: “We worked so hard [on new album Urn] but it was a condensed time frame. On “Portal of I” we spent several years writing all the material for that. We recorded and mixed it over a period of about two years. Citadel we wrote most of it in six to twelve months but even the mixing process we spent three months mixing it back and forth over email. Whereas with this, we started recording in late March, by the first week of May recording was done. By the first week of June, the mixing was almost done. It was way faster than we were used to … we just couldn’t really take days off.”
Christina: So you look at death in a lot of different ways on the album. The first song is sort of macro, it feels like the world at large, apocalypse.
Xen: “Essentially the cover is ultimately Mother Earth pouring the sun on to her. I wanted something that kind of symbolised the end result, being an urn. An urn is something like a keepsake. And it’s something that we all have in common, regardless of race, sex, social status … I had a near death experience many years ago just before I started the band and that taught me about the fragility of life.”
Watch the full Ne Obliviscaris “Urn” track-by-track interview on YouTube here. Listen to the podcast version on iTunes or Stitcher.
