Join us today in bidding farewell to Ukraine’s The Nietzsche. The mathcore/bluegrass jams of the band’s whirlwind career will soon ring out their final notes. Thankfully, the

5 years ago

Join us today in bidding farewell to Ukraine’s The Nietzsche. The mathcore/bluegrass jams of the band’s whirlwind career will soon ring out their final notes. Thankfully, the band that no one called “the next Beatles” made it to their Finals., the final (go figure) EP in a sequence of technically proficient, impossible to pigeonhole releases that redraw the lines between math metal, pop, and more.

Between bursts of mayhem resembling The Chariot and the blissfully catchy choruses of Mastodon‘s prog-metal output, The Nietzsche have always thrown surprises into their music, and have had a wildly creative presence online too. The passion for the project is rare to see, only making the wild variety of emotions on Finals. clearer and more enjoyable. Manic and searing one minute, vocalist Eugene Tymchyk and his band drop the heartfelt tunes too. Just, hidden among the blasts and general bad-ass’ery. Tymchyk recently took some time to share with us the inside scoop on each of the final Nietzche tracks, and we’re sharing it with you now. It’s good to share.

We’ll miss you, The Nietzche.

“In Kharms Way”

Funny thing, but this song didn’t make the cut to our previous EP, because the reasons I can’t even remember. All I can recall is that the bass part in the middle was too complicated for our bass player and I couldn’t fit Poe’s poem into it, a poem that eventually became Poe’s Law. So the song was abandoned, by the time we’ve started to write for the new EP drummer and I pitched the idea of this song being an opener, but the rest of the band were reluctant about this. But after a couple of sessions, we’ve shaped it into what is In Kharms Way now. The lyrics are composed of three verses by Daniil Kharms, and it kinda sums up into a very absurd story but flows very nicely together. It’s the most exhausting and difficult song to play live, so we tend to start our set with it.

“Dreams 4/17”

Our third and I guess the last song with Poe’s poetry. The initial idea was to make an upbeat ETID-esque song with a catchy chorus and something to sing along to. After a couple of takes it became more QOTSA-like by its nature, the song you want to dance to. It’s kinda embarrassing, but we’ve failed miserably to record gang vocals and sing-alongs, so in the end, we used only my vocals in the mix. Song’s name is a little puzzle I didn’t expect anyone to solve: I use only 8 out of 34 lines from the poem Dreams by Edgar Allan Poe and that’s 4/17 of the whole thing.

“Shake Your Spear”

This is the first song we wrote for the record. I think it’s a perfect representation of the essence of this band. It has everything we’re capable of: chaotic hardcore, mathcore, black metal, punk rock and even some funk. And it’s only fair that the lyrics are by the greatest poet of all time, William Shakespear. Also, it features vocals by our good friend Alex Rusnak of the band Crucify Me Gently, they play some kind of blackened deathcore, it’s awesome. Overall this is the most fun song to play live.

“Emily (Wants The) D”

The title is kinda kinky, I know. I especially love this song because of how it’s structured: the better half of the song is just one chorus playing over and over again, it’s insane! I have this Alice in Chains feel about the chorus, it’s stoned and grandiose at the same time. Drumming is really amazing in this one too, so energetic and swingy. And another thing that transpired to me after we’ve recorded everything is that every song on this EP can be a perfect closing track, they are all literally finals.

“Vasyl”

Last, but not least, our fan favourite this song is dedicated to Vasyl Stus, Ukrainian poet who was repressed and starved to death in a prison by the Soviet regime. This is the most emotional song I’ve ever done. The poem is very beautiful and I encourage everyone to translate it into English, you won’t be disappointed.

Matt MacLennan

Published 5 years ago