Noctis Imperium Want No Confusion With Art and Entertainment in Metal

"Using music as a weapon against religion has been done to death," Aeneas Inferno of Noctis Imperium explains to Noisecreep. "I won't say it's useless, but when it's done for the sake of selling records, the message gets lost and it becomes mostly in music and words that go along with it."

Being anti-religious, and using anti-religious imagery, is synonymous with metal. Don't argue this fact; it's in the blood. But for many bands, it's just a part of metal, much like touting an orgasmic grin during a solo. It really means nothing for the impassioned Inferno bands that do this might as well not be playing metal at all.

"Metal bands have it easy there, because you can throw in some refined anti-Christian lyrics, anything that's not too ugly, add some cool riffs and you have a single or something, you know? But what is being sold? What do people get from it? There's no percentage of education in that equation. When you forget that music is a form of art and confuse it with entertainment, nothing will come out of it. It becomes pop music and people dancing to it."

Noctis Imperium are a band that mean every word and attitude they put forth against religion and the spirit they see it cast over the world, but the key as Inferno sees it is through an honest assertion of these ideas keep it pure and growing. He said, "When it's done how it's supposed to be done, as a form of expression, that's the only way it'll work. Otherwise, kids will go home after the show angry at 'God' but praising 'the devil', which is a nice metaphor, but in reality, it's wrong."

Though the band hails from Venezuela Inferno believes everyone is pressured and exploited by religion in similar ways. "I think we are affected by and have to deal with it the same way it's done everywhere else," he says. "We too have to deal with some nut jobs here, although I've heard about the bible belt, so don't get me wrong, I know Americans have to deal with some hard core stuff. But we too deal with religious hustlers and evangelidiots, especially the ones who teach you that Jesus will help you after you hand them your money."

Bu the ideas expressed inside Noctis Imperium's crunching chords are more than blasphemous war cries against religion, they are about control. "There's nothing here that makes stuff happen for the world," Inferno says speaking of life in Venezuela. "We are lucky to be able to learn about what goes on in other countries and the opportunities we're missing out. The people who run the world don't care about their fellow countrymen, you think their going to care about us? So you either belong here or you don't."

Inferno continues in explanation and denegration. "We are affected by what happens in the world, 'cause we belong everywhere. I'm not Venezuelan nor European, or whatever, even though I'm forced to have a f---ing piece of paper that says so. We don't own the planet and decide upon it. The planet owns us."