ALTESCAPE_ have been lucky enough to converse with Decline The Fall's rhythm guitarist, Kris Farrugia regarding the release of their latest album, 'Our Own Demise' back in September 2020.
Decline The Fall are an emerging metalcore group hailing from Malta, and have more recently became based in Slovenia. The 5 piece is made up of: lyricist and singer, John Castiel, drummer, Ehren Fenech, lead guitarist, Matthew Mercieca, bassist, Fabio Negro, and rhythm guitarist Kris Farrugia. The band got together 'around 7 years ago with John being the founder'. It took the group some time to find the perfect line up; regarding this Kris said that 'one noticeable change (to the line up) was the the departure of Nathan (one of the guitarists from Carnival World) and the introduction of Matthew (from Composing Madness onwards)'. In terms of how the members all became acquainted with each other, Kris told us that: 'Matthew, Ehren and John were all at the same school, so they knew each other growing up. I was introduced to the band by Nathan at the very beginning of the band's journey and Fabio then joined shortly after.'
The band's musical influences vary widely, and Kris said that all of the members take different musical inspiration from different artists; this evidently helps to compile the individuality and unique nature of the band. 'John and Ehren are into bands like As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Breaking Benjamin (though we all enjoy these bands!); Matthew is more into djent and artists like Plini, David Maxim Micic and Devin Townsend; Fabio is into trash and death metal and as regards to myself, Children of Bodom, In Flames, Trivium, Shadows Fall and Periphery.'
It has been been 4 years since Decline The Fall released their debut single 'Carnival World', and I wanted to find out whether the band were surprised by the hugely positive feedback the song received. Here's what Kris had to say: 'we paid a lot of attention as regards to which song we wanted to launch first and we felt that this one was the most 'complete' song we had back at the time. We were very much delighted to see how people reacted to it, although by the time we launched it, our style had changed.' The evolvement of the band is evident looking at the shifts in style from 'Carnival World' to the 'Our Own Demise' era; with the band adapting a much more progressive metalcore style.
Speaking to Kris regarding the latest album release, I wanted to focus on the albums title track. Listening to 'Our Own Demise', there is a very solemn atmosphere that instantly captivates the audience; the track almost appears to have a clear narrative that the audience can't help but to become involved with. Kris spoke briefly on the inspiration and story of the whole album, and discussed the significance of the song individually: 'The album itself is a story which relates to how humans are causing all the ruin. However, knowing the importance of the song itself, we wanted to make it as relatable as possible, musically and lyrically, in order for the message to come across to as many people as possible. The inspiration per se comes from our own experience living in Malta, where we saw the government and the 'powerful' people literally turn Malta into a concrete jungle, cutting down an endless amount of trees and yet causing a system to evolve into an 'I don't care' attitude. This caused chaos, a complete disregard to nature, high emissions which don't even allow you to walk in the streets or drive with the window down. Of course, worldwide, the amount of disasters caused by humans was also the cherry on the cake.' The track is successfully able to summarise the narrative of the entire album; with the rest of the album adding weight and depth to the band's message.
The title track takes on a much slower start, contrasting heavily to the group's previous releases, and the rest of the album. 'Our Own Demise' utilises a slow start to build intensity and cooperate with the largely pessimistic lyrics of the song. I wanted to discover whether this could become a prominent feature of Decline The Fall's music in the future: 'we will definitely see more of this in the future! Initially, Our Own Demise had a more balanced approach from start to finish, however we felt that the impact would be much more intense if we managed to create a build up that would entertain, yet capture the listener.'
Hailing from the small country of Malta, I was interested to find out what it was like attempting to break into the metal scene there, and whether it had changed much since the band had relocated to Slovenia. Kris said that: 'we actually found it quite easy to emerge in Malta since the majority of bands are into Doom, Trash and Death Metal, therefore our style was seen as a 'breath of fresh air' too. We moved to Slovenia last September (3 of us; Ehren and Fabio joined us at the end of December) and the music scene here is pretty interesting. Of course, it is all rather quiet at the moment, but we are very confident things will go well as soon as things get back to normal.'
Regarding this idea of 'normality': band's are all desperate to get back into the live music world; with their fans equally as desperate. The last show that Decline The Fall managed to do was back in 2019 on New Years Eve, Kris spoke on this, and highlighted the reasons the band has yet to do any virtual shows- 'the last time we had a live show was on new years eve, 'welcoming 2020' - didn't bring us much luck! Of course, we cannot wait to be able to get on stage again with our fans! We did not work on any live online performances so far since we are not set up professionally enough to get the sounds and visuals we would want to get across.'
But don't threat, Decline The Fall do have some promising things in store for us in the near future: 'we do have a music video planned to be released hopefully in March, covering a song which we have already released on 'Our Own Demise'. However, we also have the intentions of releasing a new single showing our fans the direction the band is on at the moment.'
It was an great pleasure talking to Kris Farrugia, from Decline The Fall, and as a final note, the band wanted to express that: 'we are 5 down to earth people who really enjoy talking and discussing anything. Therefore, we would want our listeners to know that we are completely approachable and we would be more than happy to listen and chat with them. If it helps, we are practically all gamers and also anime lovers, so you can easily find us playing online or binging on some anime!'
Be sure to check out 'Our Own Demise' below, and chat with band via their social accounts!
Here is the link to access all of the band's relevant links: https://linktr.ee/Declinethefall
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