Brazilian/Dutch Death Metal Unit CRYPTA Announces Debut Album, “Echoes of the Soul”, with First Single “From The Ashes”
Interview conducted on June 10, 2021
By Dan Locke
Formed in June 2019, the four-piece line up consists of vocalist and bassist Fernanda Lira and Luana Dametto on drums (both former members thrash metal frontrunners NERVOSA), plus supremely talented guitarists Sonia Anubis (Cobra Spell, Ex-Burning Witches) and Tainá Bergamaschi (Ex-Hagbard). They enforce a heightened level of potency and experience from their successful past and current projects, enhancing influences from both classic and modern death metal genres, plus significant extreme and black metal elements, to create a sound of their own.
Positioned right at the burning gates of death metal salvation, their first single and music video, “From The Ashes“, already showcases the demonic, captivating power of the hard-hitting combo.
CRYPTA are:
Fernanda Lira – Vocals, Bass
Sonia Anubis – Guitar
Tainá Bergamaschi – Guitar
Luana Dametto – Drums
You formed the band back in 2019. How did you four meet and decide to start a band together?
Luana Dametto: I was always inclined to Death Metal, and at the time, I wasn’t playing in any Death Metal projects, so I decided to start one, and Fernanda got pretty excited at the idea, so we decided to start a side project together, to push ourselves to play different things and write in a different way than we were used to at the time. We got in touch with Sonia, who we already knew and admired at the time, and later on Tainá got in touch with us on our social media to ask if we needed another guitarist. We got the name by visiting a bunch of crypts and ossuaries in Brno/CZ, and that’s how we started, in a nutshell.
Tell me about the making of your debut album “Echoes of the Soul”, which will be released on June 11th?
The debut was recorded in Brazil, in a studio called “Family Mob”, which we already knew, because we recorded “Downfall of Mankind” for Nervosa there. It’s a great studio and we already know all the staff, so it was a pleasure to be able to come back there. Together with the studio staff, we invited Thiago Vakka (Jupiterian, Fossilization) to join us as a producer, and it worked really well since it’s a longtime friend and already produces his own bands. We all traveled to São Paulo to do it and spent a month living in the same house beside the studio. This is the very first time we spent time with each other, and in that house, we were also talking about the cover art and other things that needed to be chosen for the album. It was smooth in general and very new for everyone.
Usually before a record is recorded, there is a period, which the musician take time to rehearse. Since this world has changed since the beginning of 2020. How did you go about rehearsing, to record the album?
We just rehearsed from our homes. We always recorded demos with a metronome, so everyone can practice with the demo and record if anything changes and send it back in our group chat. It would be great to rehearse in real life, but not only for the pandemic, we also live very far from each other, so things will always work this way. It works pretty well, but we will still have a rehearsal before we go on tour. We were able to rehearse after the album was recorded, but it was very brief, just for fun.
How was it to record at Family Mob Studio?
Great, I would say it’s one of the best studios in São Paulo, and as I mentioned before, we already know all the staff and already recorded there before. The studio owner is the ex-drummer for Sepultura, Jean Dolabela, so for me as a drummer, it’s a dream to be able to record there because the studio has all kinds of drum setups and options.
Tell me about the first song “From the Ashes”?
“From the Ashes” is about the story of the phoenix, that we used metaphorically to tell our own story. It’s about the need of forgetting, or killing the old versions of ourselves, to be able to be reborn and move forward in life. We started from the ground up with Crypta, so we wanted to represent this in our first song, how we changed as musicians, but also as people, since time passes by and we’re constantly evolving. The music video was recorded by O2 movies, and directed by André Gustavo, and its fair to say that it was the biggest production we have been involved in. Every moment of that was absolutely crazy – we had tractors digging the graves, containers with gas to control the fire, a huge amount of people helping and even making costumes – it was insane and we’re so glad for that. We got it almost as a gift from production, and gladly also recorded a making of, so we can show people a little bit of what was going on that day.
Danny Wimmer Presents just announced their 2021 Festival Calendar: Which includes the following live shows:
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Aftershock Set For October 7-10 In Sacramento, CA, Almost Sold Out
Would you be willing to play these shows and what precautions would you like to have in place?
We’re very excited about starting playing live. Initially, we thought we were going to play even before the album was released. Of course, it would be nice to feel safe before going to play live, but Brazil is going very slow with the vaccines, so we don’t know if we will be able to play live, even if the world around us starts to function normally again. So, we’ll see, right now we can’t say much about it.
Anything you like to say in closing.
Thanks for the interview, and thanks to everyone that took the time to read it and know more about Crypta. Stay safe and well everyone.
