Natur Demonstrate Their New Yet Classic-Sounding Metal on ‘Goblin Shark’ — Song Stream

This week, Brooklyn, N.Y. metal warriors Natur released Head of Death, an album Noisecreep has been playing the heck out of as of late. The combo unleash hooky yet evil-sounding heavy metal in the vein of Mercyful Fate and Manilla Road -- in other words, their stuff rips!

We haven't posted anything about Natur on Noisecreep yet, so we wanted to chat with the band to help intro them to our readers. As a bonus, the folks at Earache Records (Natur's label) said it was OK for us to include a stream of the band's "Goblin Shark" track.

Check out our Natur interview and song stream below!

First off, what's the metal scene like in Brooklyn right now? There's an obvious history there with the great L'Amours club in the '80s and '90s.

The metal scene is a scene. We've got a decent sized handful of cool bands. There wasn't a "real" metal venue around for years, I believe, until the past two years or so. New York City has always had loads of bands coming through on tours and shit and you could see them at the bigger clubs but the local scene may have been hurting. I also must admit I was never in attendance at any CBGB's gig or L'Amours and have no real knowledge of what it was like in Brooklyn as far as metal goes in the '80s and '90s, only second hand accounts from those who were there.

I'm really impressed with some of the bands coming out of this Brooklyn underground over the passed few years. Lots of diversity and talented musicians. Mutant Supremacy is one of the sickest bunch of guys I've ever met and their music is even sicker. There's Negative Plane who is unreal, Villains, Syphilitic Lust, Occultation, Agrath, and Ominous Resurrection, who I'm anxious to witness. We had a band called Battletorn awho were also great a few years ago. There's probably hundreds more worth mentioning, but those are the ones that Ive been most excited for lately.

Listen to "Goblin Shark"

How did you personally discover classic heavy metal? It seems like most people in their 20s that love older metal initially started out with the more commercial stuff, even bands like Korn and in some cases, they discovered it via punk.

I'm pretty sure that my first real heavy metal experience came from the Zero Skateboards video Misled Youth. That video had such a great soundtrack. It was surely my first time hearing Slayer and Iron Maiden. I think that a lot of folks around my age probably had similar experiences with stuff like that since that would be the only way to hear these bands without knowing someone older into heavy metal. Samhain was in that video as well as Black Sabbath, Lots of nice bands to start with. But back then I was probably 11 or 12 and couldn't really grasp the "who" and "how" part of it yet. Just thought it was scary and cool.

I got really into Rush around then. That band is God! Years later on I began hanging with some older friends who turned me on to so much more stuff than I thought existed. King Diamond, Darkthrone, Morbid Angel, and Candlemass, to name a few bands that really blew my brains out! A friend of Wombat's and mine from Newport named Sean Bell played a huge role in our getting to hear some real obscure evil metal. His CD collection is immense, Thanks for hooking us up brotha!

Something that really struck me about the band was your lyrical style. I can't think of another metal band that quite writes like that. Can you tell me about the inspiration there?

This really is a question for Weibust [rhythm guitarist/vocalist]. The composition of our songs calls for strange vocal patterns to us. We are all giant fans of Mercyful Fate and more obscure vocal bands like Cirith Ungol and Death SS. This is probably rubbing off on us when we come up with ways of singing our songs. None of us have the range of the King but we can still try to be as creepy as him! We arent trying to really copy anyone or reinvent the wheel, Just trying to write interesting evil metal.

I read somewhere were you were very critical of the Lit Lounge venue in New York City. Did you have a bad experience there? What happened?

We did have an experience or two over there that were pretty sour. This question is kind of odd. It is a good idea, having this Metal Monday event. Lots of bands touring around trying to get shows in the city. Its great. We just had a shit night once playing there. The sound in there is rough and we were probably drunk so it made us sound even worse. I remember us not getting any drink tickets or anything either, which fucking sucks too. Really the crappiest part was when my drums fell of the stage during the set. It was vibrating off of this little platform and totally tipped over. We called it a night after that I believe. Oh, and Weibust used to work there so hes extra salty about that place. I heard Borrowed Time played there last week and it was great! But they are great so of course it was going to be great. Fuck it!

Now that the album is out in the States and Europe, what are your plans? Can we expect you on any upcoming tours?

We haven't just gotten together and played in ages. We want to just write and have fun again so that's probably what we'll do for a few weeks. We have been talking with promoters in Europe about getting over there sometime this year. No solid plans yet, but we are looking forward to playing over there again!

Natur's Head of Death album is available now via Earache Records. Pick it up on iTunes and fine record stores today!