Old school death metal seems to be going through a bit of a revival in recent years. Spectral Souls might just be the Peruvian band making the most of the renewed worldwide interest in the genre. Their 2022 debut album ‘Towards Extinction’ is chock-full of riffs that pay homage to the transitional period between thrash and death metal. The album is even available internationally through Dutch label Hammerheart Records.

“We are trying to bring back the old school sound that the genre has lost”, singer and guitarist Martín Revoredo explains. “We are not trying to be commercial; we want to be underground. These days, I can see many bands trying to be famous by posting the exact same things on social media… A lot of them are actually good musicians, but we are trying to be real. We are trying to renovate the underground that we lost. That is what I think we are.

I always have that in mind when I am writing music for Spectral Souls. When I appear to be going for something different without any apparent intention, I deliberately stop that and save it for something else. It’s really easy to take things in a different direction, because you are exposed to a lot of different influences every day. However, respecting what we are as a band is very important to us.”

Joke

“When we signed to Hammerheart, it was a surprise to many people. Even for us. I was at Maryland Deathfest in 2022, where I was talking to a friend who asked me: why don’t you write to a label, for example Hammerheart? I didn’t even think that would be possible for a band like us, since we had just been around for a year and a half. But I did eventually end up sending them a Facebook message.

Two or three days later, they answered that they liked the album and wanted to sign us. At first, I thought it was a joke, it couldn’t be real. Then Guido (Heijnens, owner of Hammerheart Records) sent me an e-mail with all the details and the contract. It was just stunning to me.

From then on, we had a really good working relationship with them. They are very good people, they are kind to us, and they were open to our terms as well. They are very interested in our work. It was amazing when I opened their website and saw our picture next to Therion and other famous bands that we have been listening to for years. The next step is trying to go there. We are talking to a promotor in Europe. Hopefully we can arrange something for this year.”

Different Stories

Prior to Spectral Souls, Revoredo had played guitar in various bands, but he had never been the frontman before. One of the new challenges that came with that was writing lyrics. “This is the first time I wrote lyrics for a band”, he confirms. “Sometimes it’s difficult to find the words for what I want to say. Because I have a clear vision of what I want to say, but finding the words that match the music is the hard part.

My English is not perfect and my vocabulary isn’t extensive. Sometimes I write lyrics in Spanish first and then try to translate them. Other times I just write directly in English. Getting the idea is the easy part. I just write what I feel. I have a lot of ideas in my head about subjects like war, religion and society. The problem is translating that to English. Another difficult thing is when you have a lot of songs and you don’t have anything more to say. You need to find new stories to tell and not try to repeat whatever you wrote before.

I never thought about Spanish songs, because I think English is more musical. Also, you are limiting your audience to only people who understand Spanish. In Argentina, for example, there is a big scene of great bands, and almost all of them sing in Spanish. And it’s very hard for them to break out of Argentina. Hermética opened for bands like Kiss and Slayer, and people would go home after they finished their opening slot. It was a national phenomenon.

I thought people wouldn’t even read the lyrics, but when we released ‘Towards Extinction’, a lot of magazines we did interviews with in European countries asked me about the lyrics. That’s very good to know, because I always thought that nobody would be interested in what I had to say.”

Partners in Crime

Spectral Souls might be a relatively new band, but the line-up consists entirely of veterans from the scene. “Adrián (Del Aguila, bassist) is my partner in crime”, Revoredo explains. “Because he is a very passionate guy when it comes to music. He really tries to move the band forward with me and spread the music everywhere.

The other guys are good friends of ours, but they have more regular lives than we do. Manuel (Rodríguez, guitarist) is a very well-respected guitarist here in Peru. Probably one of the best metal guitarists in the country. He teaches guitar at a very prestigious school. David (Teo Suchero, drummer) is a psychologist, also at a school.

They have regular jobs, which makes things a bit more complicated when it comes to scheduling, but both of them are very good musicians. The band is a democracy, we listen to what they have to say all the time, but in general, the decisions are taken by Adrián and me. To Adrián, he has two bands: Miserable and Spectral Souls, which both feel like his bands. That’s very pleasant to work with.”

Continue Playing Together

One thing of note is that apart from Del Aguila, every Spectral Souls member used to play together in a different Peruvian death metal band called Apocryphus. “Apocryphus’ bassist wanted to stop the band, because he was planning to move to Europe”, Revoredo explains. “Not long before that, we had a meeting in which we discussed whether we were all the band – so five guys with the same amount of input – or if it was the band of the guitarist and the bassist.

When he wanted to stop, he decided to stop it by himself, so I decided to start something new with the vocalist and the drummer. Eventually, he never ended up moving to Europe and decided to start the band again. But we had already started Spectral Souls, because we wanted to continue playing together.

Maybe four or five of the songs that ended up on ‘Towards Exctinction’ were originally composed for Apocryphus. In fact, Apocryphus’ ‘State of Depression’ is the same song as ‘Major Depressive Disorder’ by Spectral Souls, just with different lyrics. After that, it went very, very fast. Maybe in one week, I had the material for ‘Towards Extinction’.”

The Only Options

Revoredo started playing music in the early nineties: “At that time, it was difficult, because Peru was so far removed from the rest of the world. If you wanted to have a guitar, you needed to have a family member who lived in the USA and was willing to bring it for you. Because you couldn’t find anything here. We maybe had some bad guitars, drums or amps, but it was very, very hard to get something good. Only rich people had Marshalls or Ibanez guitars or something like that.

Also, there weren’t a lot of rehearsal places or studios. And if you could find something, it was really expensive. For a fifteen-year-old kid, it was very, very hard to pay that amount of money. You can’t ask your parents, because they will probably say: you have to be a lawyer, an engineer or a doctor or something like that. Music is for drug addicts, haha!

I wasn’t poor. My dad was a military man, so we had a good position. But even then, it was really hard to get an amplifier, guitars or anything like that. You had to have a lot of money or family in the USA who were willing to bring something to you. Those were the only options. And it’s not just you; it’s everyone trying to make music.

At that time, I had a rehearsal place at home. I had a really bad drum kit, really bad amps and really bad guitars. I was lucky because my parents really supported me at the time. They bought me instruments and everything I wanted to make music. I don’t know why, but I consider myself very lucky, haha!”

Tropical

“The bands I listened to as a kid were bands like Necropsya, Mortala and Sepulcro. If you have the chance to listen to Sepulcro’s first album ‘Power’s Trace’, you should do it. It’s really nice. Or ‘Slaves of the Magic’ by Necropsya. They are celebrating thirty years of that album shortly. Mortala never recorded an album, but they are very popular here. Most of them live in the USA these days, I think.

And Masacre too, obviously. Those were the first bands I remember hearing here in Peru. Also, I think Orgus was the very first heavy metal band here in Peru that really did everything the way it was supposed to be done at the time: they had long hair, they had the right style and they were featured in magazines.

What Peru lacks is a band that represents the country, like Sepultura in Brazil. Peru doesn’t have that. Mortem, probably, but they are underground, despite probably being the most popular outside of Peru. You have to remember that this is not a metal country. Peru is a tropical country with tropical music: cumbia, reggaeton, things like that.”

Return the Favor

That does not mean Revoredo lets that get in the way of finding places to play, even internationally. “We’re going to Mexico for five dates in February”, he explains. “If people want us to play somewhere, it’s likely in this scene that they have a band. And then you have to return the favor by bringing them to play in Peru. That’s usually how it works. In this case, we know guys in Mexico who have a band and prepared a tour for us. And maybe next year, we will plan a tour with them in Peru.

We just played in different cities in Peru. Obviously, Lima is the main place to play, because we don’t have a big scene in Peru. 300 people is a lot for a local concert in Lima. Before the pandemic, there was a festival called Lima Metal Fest. They booked Rhapsody, Solstice from the USA and around twenty to thirty other bands. There were a thousand people there.

And the promoters generally don’t want to pay you, because they don’t get any money either, so they cannot pay you. Most of the promoters booking those gigs are just doing that because they love metal. Not to get any money, because more often than not, they will end up losing money. They try to do the right things: book plane tickets, put you in a good hotel, really try to give you the best possible experience. But making money with it is just not possible. Maybe in Lima, but not in the rest of the country.”

Special thanks to Adrián Del Aguila for his help setting this interview up!