Pigeon Spins Featuring an Interview with Deathkrush

Deathkrush - Plague protocol  

For fans of apocalyptic atmosphere, crushing heaviness, and lyrical visions of cosmic-scale doom, “Plague protocol” may be the crown jewel that describes the end of all things. For Deathkrush the album is just the beginning.

Interview with Deathkrush

(º)> "Plague Protocol” has been described as sounding like the end of all things. When you were writing it, were you consciously trying to create an apocalyptic atmosphere, or did that emerge naturally?

Well, I wasn´t thinking, ”Let´s soundtrack the end”. Writing aggressive music in troubled times with a new world order, war, epidemics, military buildup, global warming, trade wars, fragile systems, broken relationships etc… All that tension naturally bled into the songs created an apocalyptic mood as a common thread throughout the album. By the time the lyrics, the riffs and production came together, the atmosphere had crystallized into something that felt like a collapse in slow motion. So it wasn’t forced—it was the most honest shape the music wanted to take.

(º)> The album feels overwhelming in the best possible way, crushing, dense, and immersive. How do you balance sheer heaviness with structure so it doesn’t become chaos for chaos’ sake?

In my songwriting, regardless of genre or project, I have always tried to build with nuances to make the song interesting from start to finish, even after the first listen. It is important to be able to catch your breath every now and then and have time to reflect. You can't possibly do that in chaos without structure. For me, heaviness only works if there’s something holding it together. Anyone can stack distortion on distortion, but real impact comes from intention. I’m always thinking about contrast—if a riff is supposed to feel like a landslide, what’s the groove or motif underneath that keeps the listener grounded? I treat the dense layers almost like architecture: the low end is the foundation, the guitars are the walls, and the vocals or lead elements are the beams that keep everything from collapsing into noise. Let´s say It’s a balance between instinct and discipline. I let the heaviness push as far as it wants, but I’m constantly carving space, shaping dynamics, and making sure every chaotic moment has a purpose. When the structure is right, the intensity becomes immersive instead of overwhelming, and that’s where the magic happens.

(º)> Your guitar tone is absolutely central to the record. It feels engineered for dread. How much experimentation went into shaping that sound?

I tried a couple of combinations before landing on something that carried that sense of dread without becoming muddy. In the end, it wasn’t about finding the most extreme sound—it was about finding a tone that carried the emotional weight of the recordings. I Landed in a long lost friend since 20 years back in time, a real ”blast from the past”: Guitaramp POD Line 6 ver.2.0. The experimental part of it was finding the right balance in the amplifier. Producing the raw and brutal sound but at the sam time not letting it become too ”overgained”. When it finally felt like the guitar was almost breathing tension, I knew I had it.

The drums move between blast-beat fury and slower, bone-crushing moments. What role does tempo play in creating tension across the album?

Tempo plays a crucial role in shaping the album’s overall tension. The rapid blast-beat sections inject immediate intensity—an almost chaotic surge that keeps the listener on edge. These bursts of speed create a sense of urgency and unpredictability. Then when shifting into slower, heavier passages, the sudden drop in tempo feels massive and punishing, letting the weight of each riff hit harder. This contrast between fast and slow becomes a kind of push-and-pull dynamic. The high-speed moments stretch the tension tight, while the slower “bone-crushing” moments release it. I think this interplay keeps the listener engaged, heightens emotional impact, and gives each track a dramatic sense of momentum and release. You could also liken a Deathkrush song to interval training with high-intensity moments interspersed with low-intensity ones.

I want my Deathkrush songs to act like interval training with high-intensity moments interspersed with less intense ones. Otherwise the same answer as question 2.

(º)> Vocally, Deathkrush feels like a two-headed creature, high shrieks and deep gutturals working together. How did you develop that dual-vocal approach?

The dual-vocal approach grew naturally out of experimenting with what each style could express emotionally. The highs let me channel anxiety, chaos, and urgency, while the lows carry the heaviness and brutality that anchor the music. Over time, I realized the two voices didn’t need to compete; they could coexist as different sides of the same creature. To me it feels less like two separate methods and more like one instrument with multiple settings—each serving the atmosphere my songs needs.

(º)> There’s something almost ritualistic about the way the vocals interact. Is that contrast meant to represent different states or voices within the themes you’re exploring?

You’re absolutely right to pick up on that. The contrast between the vocals is very intentional. I wanted them to feel like different states of mind—almost like internal voices responding to each other. The growl represents anger and frustration - the punches on the sandbag while the higher and clearer voice represents moments of reflection and recovery - the hot shower after the punches on the sandbag. By letting those voices overlap and almost “ritually” circle one another, I’m trying to show how those states coexist rather than resolve neatly. It’s less about creating a dialogue in the literal sense and more about capturing that layered emotional landscape where multiple truths are happening at once.

(º)> Lyrically, you deal with inner collapse, cosmic dread, and violent transformation. Where does that fascination with existential scale come from?

A lot of that fascination comes from trying to make sense of the gap between the tiny scale of my own inner life and the overwhelming size of everything happening around us. When things feel like they’re falling apart—personally or globally—the language of collapse and cosmic dread becomes strangely honest. It gives shape to feelings that are too big or too tangled to express directly. I’ve always been drawn to that tension between the intimate and the infinite. When you zoom out far enough, every fear or transformation becomes part of a larger pattern. And when you zoom in, the smallest emotional shift can feel like a seismic event. Writing at an existential scale lets me explore both perspectives at once: the chaos inside and the enormity outside. In that space, violence and transformation aren’t just dramatic—they’re symbols of how we keep shedding versions of ourselves to survive.

(º)> Do you see “Plague Protocol” as a reflection of personal experiences, or more as a metaphor for wider societal and global anxieties?

I see Plague Protocol operating on two levels at once. On a personal level, it definitely draws from my own experiences—moments of isolation, uncertainty, recurrent cancer disease and the feeling of navigating a world that suddenly doesn’t function the way it used to. Those emotions became an entry point for the work. At the same time, the piece is very much a metaphor for broader societal and global anxieties. Over the last few years, we’ve all been confronted with questions about vulnerability, collective responsibility, and the fragility of our systems—medical, political, and even emotional. Plague Protocol uses the language of contagion and crisis not to document a single event, but to reflect that shared atmosphere of tension and transformation. So while it’s rooted in personal feelings, its primary intention is to echo the larger, almost universal sense of navigating upheaval—how we adapt, how we protect ourselves, and how we reconnect.

(º)> The album feels cinematic, like a collapsing cathedral, as you’ve put it. Do visual imagery or narratives play a role when you’re writing music?

Absolutely — visual imagery is often the starting point for me. When I’m writing, I initially tend to think in scenes rather than in chords or structures. The vision of the “collapsing cathedral” came from trying to capture a sense of grandeur giving way to fragility, and that image guided the atmosphere of the entire album. Sometimes it’s almost like scoring an imaginary film: I’ll see textures, colors, or movements, and the music grows out of trying to translate those visuals into sound. Other times it’s more narrative — a moment, a setting, or a symbolic gesture becomes the emotional anchor for a piece. I don’t always know the full story, but the imagery gives me a direction, a tone, a world to inhabit. So yes, visuals play a huge role. They help me stay connected to the emotional core of the music and give the album a sense of cohesion, almost as if each track is another panel in the same cinematic sequence. If the album feels like a film or a fallen structure, that’s because I was building it from those images from the very beginning.

(º)> Death metal and metalcore both have strong traditions. How do you approach blending those worlds while still sounding distinctly like Deathkrush?

For me, blending death metal and metalcore isn’t about forcing two genres together—it’s about finding the emotional and sonic spaces where they naturally intersect. Death metal gives us that raw, uncompromising intensity, while metalcore brings a sense of dynamics, groove, and emotional punch. But at the end of the day, what makes it sound like Deathkrush is our commitment to writing from instinct rather than formula. I my studio I don’t ask, ‘Is this riff death metal or metalcore?’ If a blast beat calls for a melodic break, I just let it happen. If a breakdown needs the chaos of dissonant tremolo picking, I go there. So the blend isn’t theoretical. It’s organic. I honor the traditions of both genres, not trying to reenact them. I´m trying to carve out our own space where brutality, emotion, and honesty coexist—and that’s what makes it unmistakably Deathkrush.

(º)> This record feels like a statement of intent. When you say the album is “just the beginning,” what does that mean for where Deathkrush is heading next?

I have many written Deathcrush songs just lying around waiting for their turn to be produced. Some already recorded and others mostly in the idea stage. So, that's why I see this first album Plague Protocol as the start. Now it's just a matter of packaging the songs correctly in a project, so that listeners can follow a common thread, an intertwining visual story through an entire album, where each song is part of something bigger. Maybe the listener sees the same visual scenarios and patterns as I do during the creation and selection of songs in the packaging. Maybe completely different, which is also completely ok.

(º)> How do you translate something this intense into a live setting without losing its weight or atmosphere?

I think translating an intense metal album into a live setting is all about identifying what elements create its “weight” and atmosphere, and then finding live-friendly ways to deliver them without overcomplicating things. Starting point in this would be rehearsals by stripping the songs down to their core: the riffs, the rhythms, and the dynamic peaks that carry the emotional punch. Ultimately, I would not trying to recreate the album perfectly, just trying to recreate the feeling of it.

(º)> For listeners discovering Deathkrush for the first time, what do you hope they feel when the final track fades out?

I want them to feel: “Wow! This was interesting and different”. I want the listener to get their pulse racing and their adrenaline pumping.

I want them to feel the rage, the anger, the frustration but also some kind of comfort, that their own little world might not be so bad after all, in comparison what Deathkrush bring. I want them to feel like they just finished a slightly lazier form of a workout 😊 I also want them to look forward to the next workout - the upcoming Deathkrush album.

(º)> Extreme music can be cathartic for both artists and fans. What does creating something this brutal give you personally?

For me, creating extreme music is a way of making sense of emotions that don’t fit neatly into everyday life. There’s something incredibly freeing about taking all the chaos, tension, and intensity that we all carry around and shaping it into something intentional. The brutality isn’t about negativity for me—it’s about release. When I’m writing or performing, it feels like I’m pulling something heavy out of myself and transforming it into sound. It leaves me clearer, lighter, and more grounded. And knowing that listeners find their own catharsis in it makes the whole process feel deeply human and strangely unifying.

(º)> Finally, if Plague Protocol is the sound of the end, what comes after the end for Deathkrush?

The end is never the final destination of the journey in a larger perspective. It only leaves room for a new beginning. The sequel will probably carry that title: A New Beginning.

(•)> That's all, Folks! Check out Deathkrush on the Pigeon Spins Playlist