Metallers Theraphosa talk about their new album, “Transcendence”

French metallers Theraphosa were kind enough to answer a couple of questions linked to their new album, “Transcendence”. Check out the full interview below! 🙂

Photography by Denis Goria

Hello Theraphosa, thanks for your time. Would it be possible to introduce your band to our readers, as well as your roles in it?

Hello Valentine and everyone at Distrolution! We are Theraphosa, a Progressive Metal trio from Paris, France. Vincent (Guitar & Lead Vocals) and Matthieu (Bass & Back Vocals) are brothers and Martin (Drums) is Matthieu’s oldest friend. As we like to say, we are brothers by blood and by the bloodshed.

How would you describe the French metal scene from your own POV?

We know that the French scene is growing and that there are a lot of promising artists coming from it. However, as we have always been very focused on our own project, we have never really looked up for bands from our country.

That being said, we consider Gojira to be the flagship of what France can deliver in terms of metal. We believe that they have shown the world that France can be the nest of interesting and unique sounding bands.

Your album “Transcendence” is out since April 2020. Due to the whole Covid-19 pandemic, did you guys think at some point that it would have been better, for any reasons, to postpone the release?

This is a difficult question to answer as you never know what could have happened if we did postpone the release. It is obviously not the ideal time for an album release as a lot of professionals of the scene were in the same situation as we were. As a consequence, it was a bit more difficult to get things done the way it is usually done in normal conditions. However, we and our partners do our best to promote our release with the tools we have at our disposal at the moment.

I feel like all releases had a bit of a “wrong timing”, especially for tour support. Do you guys already have some dates planned for the end of the year or 2021?

It is indeed difficult to plan new tour dates for the moment. Due to the pandemic, some of our shows were cancelled or postponed. Some of them were supposed to happen in late 2020 but we do not have any information so far.

How long have you worked on this release and how was the recording process? Any funny story to share with our readers?

We spent a month in the studio, it included recording, mixing and mastering.

For our debut album, we worked with Francis Caste from Studio Sainte-Marthe in Paris. He is known for his work with French bands such as Regarde Les Hommes Tomber, The Great Old Ones or Hangman’s Chair to name a few.

As we always say, it was the perfect choice for it as he instantly understood the spirit of the band and where we wanted to go with our sound.

We had a really good time with him and working with him was a pleasure from the start to the end.

As for funny stories, we have a lot of them. The studio is located in a Paris district that can be sometimes completely surreal. For example, every morning, there was a man in the street who was swearing and screaming at everyone he crossed path with. At first, it is a bit surprising but after a few days you get used to it.

If you had to pick one song that, according to you, best reflects the spirit of your album. Which one would you pick and why?

Again, this is a difficult question to answer as each band member would have his own opinion on that. However, « The Curse of Chronos » is probably the song that reflects the most the spirit of the album and the band. This song includes a lot of different influences and goes through multiples atmospheres. We believe that it sums up nicely what we try to do as a band.

Is there a question that you always wanted to answer in an interview… but that no one ever asked?

As of right now, nothing comes to our mind.

The last words are for you. If you have a message to convey, here’s your chance!

We wish to thank you Valentine for this interview, and we hope that people will enjoy listening to our debut album as much as we enjoyed making it!

Thanks for your time!