Noctis Imperium Have Played in the Jungle

Venezuela's Noctis Imperium have just finished up what is their debut full-length, entitled 'Glorification of Evil: The Age of the Golden Dawn'. The soon-to-be-released album pounds and careens into a cavern, breathing in between black metal and death metal. But back in 2001, the band, sporting a more black metal sound, was only one member, Aeneas Inferno, and he was fine with that.

"I just wanted to capture my music on tape. It was enough for me to be able to record it and listen to it," Inferno told Noisecreep about what sparked him to create the band. At that time he saw no reason and had no long-term plan to take Noctis Imperium to a stage. "I was a young student, and the whole 'band' thing was new to me; also seeing how many metal artists were able to record their music with out being in a group was appealing to me and my situation at the time. I just didn't feel the need to go live then," he said.

The need to 'go live' came after a local drummer heard the 2004 'Night Divine' demo and wanted to rehearse it with Inferno. "I really liked the idea," Inferno says. "So after putting up the live line up and two years of doing shows, it was actually made official when we decided to record the 'Evil Philosophies' EP, where the rest of the guys got to play their own parts in the studio, as opposed to how it was done before."

On the cusp of their album being launched into the metal world, the band is planning to tour outside of Venezuela. Even though a metal scene exists there, places to play are scarce at times. "It's really unstable for local shows," explained Inferno. "For example, a couple of months ago we played at a bar in [Venezuela's capital city] Caracas that had been closed for almost a year, and I just heard a couple of days ago it was shut down again."

Inferno sees that touring acts can affect the smaller bands in a country like theirs, as well, saying, "The country has been pretty much overwhelmed by international bands coming, which was never seen in the past. We used to get like one or two international bands a year, and that's when the scene was best for locals. I think it just depends on the timing; sometimes it goes up and sometimes down."

For Inferno what has to be one of the greatest experiences he's had with Noctis Imperium was easily when the band played in the Amazon jungle. "It was a cultural festival in a Venezuelan state called Amazonas, which is were the Amazon jungle touches Venezuela. It's right there, bordering with Colombia and Brazil," Inferno described. "We travelled 16 brutal hours by bus and had the chance to play in front of thousands of crazy people hungry for heavy music. We also got to stay a couple of days there; got to learn about some of the native cultures and enjoyed some of the most killer landscapes."