LARVAE – Join The Hardcore Cult! (June 2022) | Features / Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine

LARVAE – Join The Hardcore Cult!
Neil Arnold
June 2022

Larvae (l-r): Disgusting Dennis and Lucilia Sericata

In the murky world of modern grind and death metal there is a glut of gore-soaked, gloom-filled bands filling up the swamp. Whether it’s Florida’s Wharflurch or Worm, Copenhagen’s Sequestrum, Glasgow’s Coffin Mulch, Spain’s Leprophiliac, Seattle’s Cerebral Rot, Japan’s Pharmacist or West Yorkshire’s Slime Lord, there’s no denying that the scene is more grotesque than it has ever been.

Another band I’d like to plop into the cauldron of carnage is Italian / Romanian gruesome twosome Larvae, that has just released the most sickening, harrowing and deranged EP I’ve heard for a long time. Acid Cult Horror oozes out two years after the band’s debut EP Sickening Cadaveric Perversion.

I recently caught up with Larvae members Lucilia Sericata (vocals, guitars and synths) and Disgusting Dennis (bass and drums) to ask just how these unhinged individuals got together and what sort of minds could conjure up such a fetid composition of decomposition, and so I waded, waist deep in human waste through the sewers to get answers.
“The band started officially in December 2019 with the very first rehearsal,” says Lucilia, the mesmeric front woman. “But it was in my mind since many years before. I was feeling this strong and uncontrollable impulse to put this project to life, I recorded with my voice the riffs years ago and I was just waiting for the occasion to make this real. I asked Disgusting Dennis to join for drums and bass, and since the first rehearsal everything went smooth as hell. I knew what I wanted and we achieved it.

“Larvae can be thought of on two stages: a metaphorical one – those unsettling feelings devouring your mind and soul, the most twisted and sickening fantasies – or the real ones, creating life from the dead and festering on your putrescent carcass.

“I did the logo one evening where larvae, worms and maggots are obviously the main characters, and I selected for the cover art only skulls from horror movies fulfilled with vermin. Disgusting Dennis puts everything together and that’s how the artwork comes to life.”

Bearing in mind the name Lucilia Sericata is actually the correct term for the common green bottle fly, I sensed this is no ordinary meat n’ vegetables death metal band, so I pressed further, wondering just what sort of things influence the band. After all, the Italian “metal” scene has garnered a great following over the years, as has its film industry, particularly in the Giallo and horror genre. “You know, my brain is influenced / inspired by many things that I will explain throughout this interview,” she states. “What I can say is that I am a painter too; I love oil colours because the more time passes, the more they get vibrant and the painting seems like changing day by day. When I paint I build layers on layers; that’s what I do with my music as well. The skeleton of a song comes to mind with all the things as I imagine them to be – samples, voice variations, synths – so it’s like having a canvas and starting to add more and more details that create something unique, disturbing and unsettling.

“Horror movies, from classics (Maniac, Possession, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist…) to ultra-gory underground ones like Guinea Pig, and Marian Dora, Brian Paulin, Japanese amateur ones. Death metal (Nuclear Death, Necro Schizma, Goatlord, Autopsy, Delirium…), Goregrind (Regurgitate, Dead Infection, Last Days Of Humanity, Impetigo…), painting, classical music (I am a classical pianist too), Italian doom metal (Paul Chain, Black Hole, Death SS, Jacula, Sacrilege, Epitaph, Run After To, Zess, The Black…), Italian horror masters like Deodato, Lenzi, Argento, and Bava, horror soundtracks mainly with Goblin, Carpenter… I could go on for days! All these features are in my mind and I take inspiration, or I create my own inspirations, doing just what comes in that specific moment.”

The combination of Lucilia and Dennis clearly works due to their wildly differing inspirations. “We try to make really spooky music,” reveals Dennis. “I really dig noise rock bands with extremely loud live performances… Lightning Bolt and A Place To Bury Strangers come to mind. I mostly listen to psychedelic rock and garage punk, but I was always into metal since a very young age. Fave bands include Impetigo, Macabre, Electric Wizard, Goblin, Aphrodite’s Child, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Acid Witch and DEVO. I like to play with sound and samples, and working with Lucilia in creating the most disturbing music is always fun.”

And “disturbing” is most certainly how I’d describe the 13-minutes of music on Acid Cult Horror, an EP that brings death / grind and doom metal elements, but acts more as a psychological, yet hellish soundscape of filth, surrealism and sepulchral echoes, more so in Sericata’s unorthodox vocalisations. It boasts the sort of tortured cacophony that had me wondering if such tumult was an agonizing long process or something organic and spontaneous. Lucilia nods towards the latter. “A couple of days,” she confirms. “In the rehearsal room it’s important to arrive with clear ideas and you just have to achieve them first, then record. This is valid also for the previous demo [4-Track Promo Tape 2020] and EP [Sickening Cadaveric Perversion]. Then for the synths in ‘Cold Euphoria’ and ‘… Outro’, I was in the shower, still fucked up from previous day, and I heard this voice singing in my mind. I instantly recorded on the phone with all the elements around. Disgusting Dennis helped putting the elements together and bam, that’s it. A new rotten foetus has born to life. I can’t give an explanation on why I can compose things in such a way, it’s just how my brain works.”

Due to the unusual style of Larvae – which even sets them apart from the group of bands listed at the start – I sense inspiration from other music extremes though. “Here the word ‘extreme’ finds its relativity,” says Lucilia. “I really appreciate heavy rock as well as Italian doom tradition, and also classical music that can be truly extreme. One of the few things giving me joy is sitting in front of my piano and talking to it, and I did gigs as well in the past.”

While on the subject of gigs, has the band ever played any? I’m intrigued as to how the sound of the band would come over live. “This is the only problem in creating a band during a worldwide pandemic,” bemoans Lucilia. “This was good for giving us time to release demos, an EP, shipping etc. but affected the possibility to play live gigs. Furthermore, all the festival bills around were full already since 2020 and before. My plan with Larvae is playing few but memorable and disgusting experiences. We managed to do a subversive ‘open rehearsal’ during December 2020 and a bunch of people showed up, and we plan an official debut in Bucharest probably at the end of August. Then, who knows?”

I get the sense the thought of an unknown future seems more appealing to Larvae, a band that acts on instinct as epitomised already. “At the moment I just want to focus all my energies on Larvae,” admits Lucilia. “I was vocalist for Italian death metal band Lurking Terror, now split up.

Dennis, however, seems a bit more active. “I have two other active bands in Bucharest besides Larvae: Cardinal (psychedelic / math rock) and D.E.N.I.S. (garage / punk rock),” he says. “For D.E.N.I.S. I write all the music and perform all the instruments myself. My past projects include, Fuck You! Dracu (hardcore punk) and Cold Brats (noise punk).”

I just can’t imagine what sort of evolution Larvae will undergo, and just how unbalanced the sound may become. “Larvae will go more and more twisted, the surprises are not over yet,” promises Lucilia. “It’s pleasant to terrify people around adding more and more disturbing elements, and surely something fucked up will come in my mind. I still cannot predict what, because Larvae is just about subconscious inspirations, so let’s see what my brains will suggest next.”

Do you think the line-up will ever expand during the process of evolution? “Larvae was born as a duo, and so I plan it to stay that way. We work great with Disgusting Dennis and things couldn’t be more perfect. So this combination works greatly.”

There is clearly a great chemistry between you both? “I brought with me all the ‘luggage’ of influences from my country of horror, doom, ossuaries, death cults, Southern legends of witches, curses and spells,” Lucilia purrs. “Plus, as mentioned, before the doom metal tradition which is huge in Italy, and the horror movies tradition as well. We worked together on the sound, I wanted it as rotten and putrid as possible, bringing you to an almost ancestral dimension made of your deepest fears, perversions, and unsettling thoughts. I wanted my music to scare the shit out of you, as death metal is supposed to.”

Well this just leaves me gagging for a full-length release, but I guess the demos and EPs are short for a reason? “Yes, exactly. No full lengths are ever planned because this would affect the spontaneous dimension of Larvae,” states Lucilia. “What comes in my brain is what gets recorded. The effort to squeeze my neurons to create at any cost a full length would not be productive. It’s better to leave a slight taste of unsatisfaction for ‘I want more’. The sense of unsatisfaction and pain is still part of the Larvae concept, don’t forget.”

Larvae is clearly a deep project, a sound that leaves me with a nasty aftertaste like one of those video nasties from the 1980s – a copy from a copy of a copy that you had to hide under the bed to prevent your parents finding it. Larvae goes beyond the realms of simple death metal design, but the duo clearly attracts a following around the world. “Seeing as how we have sent tapes and shirts all over the planet, I reckon we have some fans spread out over the continents. We would really love to meet them soon in a live setting,” comments Dennis with buoyancy.

Lucilia is equally optimistic about the Larvae cult growing. “The support is overwhelming,’ she proclaims. “Surely there are fans who have been following Larvae since the start and supported us in any way possible, and I am so grateful for it. So yes, we might as well consider Larvae a cult with its maniac followers!”

The demos and EPs really do sell-out quickly, especially now that cassettes are making a comeback.So, will there be represses of said articles? “For now, the new Acid Horror Cult EP will come out on two formats: cassette [Unholy Domain Records] and seven-inch [Dawnbreed Records], and the release dates will be announced on our Facebook page,” says Lucilia. “For past material we might as well think about it, seeing the success and the general requests. We produced the first demo in three different colours at first and they sold out in few days, so maybe in the future we might think about some surprise. Nothing sure at the moment, but you guys will know when will be the moment.”

How do you feel regarding all the streaming websites? Does it affect the sales of physical formats? There seems to be a call for death metal cassettes and vinyl nowadays. “Streaming services are yet another plague thrown upon musicians,” reckons Dennis. “While they offer accessibility and ease-of-use to the masses, they are only mega-corporations setting on making as much clicks as possible, while frauding the artists of as much money as they can. They even affected the songwriting process, with bigger artists focusing on creating shorter songs so they can be streamed more often. Fortunately for Larvae, death metal has always been a culture built on tape-trading and the physical format of music. Tapes / CDs are a must if you want to exist as a band, with vinyl being more and more difficult and expensive to produce. We were fortunate enough to work with great labels like Dawnbreed Records, Stygian Black Hand, Unholy Domain, Memento Mori, so our releases were covered in all physical formats.”

In spite of creating music that sounds like the soundtrack to an obscure, ritualistic dungeon, Lucilia clearly knows how the world around her moves, particularly when it comes to how music has progressed, but there’s always, as with me, that twinge of nostalgia present. “For however much we try to stay as old school as possible, the world around us keeps on spinning and times are changing,” she concedes. “We can’t do much about it. On the other hand, I generally do music for the pleasure it gives to me and for the purpose of spreading the horrors of my mind around. That’s my main goal, and maniacs around can still support bands in the traditional ways.

“Talking about myself, I find it amazing to close myself in my room and spin vinyl or play a tape with some whiskey in a glass. It’s a magic, almost ritualistic feeling that obviously streaming websites can’t offer, but this is only my experience.”

I guess the whole pandemic thing didn’t help bands either? “As previously stated, Larvae infection was born at the start of the pandemic,” she continues. “During the lockdown I’ve had the time to fully focus on something that I love – music and paint – things that usually are more difficult to cultivate during your ‘normal’ life. I had tons of hatred towards the worldwide situation, and this feeling is pretty clear if you hear the demo and Sickening Cadaveric Perversion, I think.”

Clearly Larvae thrives on taking inspiration from the horrors of real-life as well as imagination where in the deep, dank, and dark recesses of the mind all manner of fantasies and disconcerting thoughts can be chained and then channelled into music. While many death metal bands over the years have become clinically soulless in their quest for stardom, or outright goofy in their horror-obsessed notions, Larvae is a different breed of band. But how would you describe the Larvae sound to anyone unfamiliar with it? “I loved the description that was given once ‘slow-mo goregrind’,” Lucilia smirks. “Indeed, the lyrics and topics are completely entangled in gore and splatter, but in a doom / death cadency that will drown you into your deepest fears, nightmares and terrors. It’s like holding dearly in your arms this rotten, decomposed foetus, caressing his brains out.”

Now there’s a description that’ll stay with me forever, again reminding me of one of those battered video nasty sleeves. “The band that was banned in 48 countries!” announces Dennis like some earthy voice-over master from the 80s warning you of the latest grim VHS video just released.

I guess nowadays it’s difficult to shock, as we exist in a world now saturated by the media. However, one thing is for sure, while this strange world spins, Lucilia Sericata and Disgusting Dennis – otherwise known as Larvae – will remain embedded in the underground like two festering, maggot-riddled corpses dragging you down into their musty pit of fiendish odours, and you will succumb to their moans, cries and harrowing bludgeoning.

So as I claw my way towards the light, finding myself clambering out of this bathtub of blubbery, congealed liquid, I look back over my shoulder and quickly ask Lucilia if there’s anything she’d like to share with the readers of Metal Forces, and with a glint in her eye she booms seductively, “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom”.

And with that, Larvae are gone, slithering back from whence they came to nestle once again in the darkness until another plan hatches in this intriguing yet terrifying saga. I cannot wait.

Acid Cult Horror was released independently on June 13th, 2022.

Interview published in June 2022.

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