Introducing: Aasar

Rising out of the cold valleys in the mountains of northern Italy comes a force to be reckoned with in the form of extreme blackened metal meets deathcore band Aasar, who describe their music as “dramatic, solemn and aggressive.”

The Aasar story began around five years ago when the quartet of Atryas (vocals and guitar), Hypnos (guitar), Herebus (bass) and Exos (drums) were at high school. They got to know each other through playing local gigs with different cover bands, while Atryas and Exos started up Aasar as a metalcore cover band. They got to know Hypnos and Herebus and realised they needed to take things to the next level.

As Herebus tells us: “That meant forming a project with long-term views and a clear identity, given the great ambitions we all have. We then set about figuring out who and what we wanted to be and in 2019 we officially founded Aasar as we are now, starting with building our own style and sound when writing our first songs together.”

And on the sound they’ve honed since, Herebus explains: “A trip led by gloomy clean guitars, which bring you into despair, only for you to get run over by enormous riffs and face-melting solos. Dramatic for the use of black and touching melodies. Solemn for the huge tone of outros and breakdowns we get from orchestrals and cinematic backgrounds. Aggressive for the song structure and heavy riffing.”

Our first taste of this was Aasar’s recent single Court of the Unknown, which opens up with an ominous building noise then a piercing guitar lick jumps in over gloomy instrumentals. It explodes into a huge atmospheric wall of instrumentals as Atryas’ powerful vocals join in. The pace drops with a lingering guitar, but bursts into life with crushing chords and a darting lick supporting vicious vocals. Delicious stabbing guitars take over as the punishing vocals continue, giving way to a huge guitar solo that brings the track to a dramatic conclusion.

On the track, Herebus said: “It’s a special track due to it also being used to announce our new entry into the Seek and Strike roster. It also helped boost our streaming numbers across the board, which is always great to see. Just getting so many positive messages from people it’s resonating with just means the world to us.” Check it out in the video here:

That track comes from the band’s debut EP From Nothing To Nowhere, which was released in June and is nothing short of an assault of dark metal goodness. It starts out with intent in the intro track Rise Of The Dark Ether, which begins with a slightly chilling synth sound and feeds into the lively guitar lick that opens up the title track. That gives way to a wild ride of intense vocals, a flying guitar lick and punishing drums. Check it out in the guitar playthrough video here:

The album includes the wonderful Wasteland, which starts out with a cool bouncy lick that feeds into a wall of guitars and a vicious scream. The track is unrelenting, with a delicious gothic feel to the huge instrumentals, including a really cool breakdown of stabbing chords before the pace finally drops before a powerful conclusion.

The vicious Fall Into Oblivion features hugely enjoyable rhythmic guitars, before building up to a delicious piercing guitar solo and a superbly dark outro. And final track Defying Necrosis brings proceedings to an equally powerful conclusion, including sections of intense blastbeat drums, piercing guitars and monstrous vocals.

On the EP, Herebus told us: “We’re mega-gassed since it’s our first EP, we feel like it’s our calling card to the rest of the world. We’ve had a great response, just with the singles alone. Given the hard work we put behind the scenes, to finally be able to share it to outer ears makes us proud. To think that in the corners of the world, there’s someone like us who’s listening to our music and appreciating it is an amazing feeling that pushes us forward.

“Having unconsciously mixed our different tendencies in the tracks gives the EP an odd but heavy vibe, that resembles deathcore, djent and black as its core focus but brings an unconventional soundscape that will be enjoyable by a much larger audience.”

Aasar’s members bring a range of influences to the table. Herebus comes from a strong death metal, thrash and nu-metal background, while Hypnos grew up on rock classic before moving into extreme and technical metal. Atryas draws influence from nu-metal and industrial music before evolving into djent and progressive and symphonic metal, and Exos grew up with punk and alternative rock and metal before flowing into death metal, black metal and jazz.

And on what inspires them to write music, Herebus explains: “Specifically on songwriting, we have been influenced by bands such as Thy Art Is Murder, Shadow of Intent, Meshuggah, Fit for An Autopsy, and Born of Osiris. We never really tried to imitate anyone too much, but we definitely used some influence from these and other bands. At the end of the day, the final product never really sounded like anything we heard before.”

Despite only just releasing their debut EP, Aasar are already hard at work on new music. In Herebus’ words: “We are trying to change perspective, and definitely raising the bar for the next record, as From Nothing To Nowhere is just the beginning.” They’re also working with their management team to plan as many gigs as possible over the next few months.

You can follow Aasar on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.