Combining two seemingly contrasting styles rarely transcends novelty status. However, French quartet Impureza did not just survive past one album, their third album ‘Alcázares’ features their most successful fusion of flamenco guitars and melodies with progressive death metal intensity thus far. Guitarist Lionel Cano Muñoz shares more about the process of this unique Spanish-language band.

“Esteban (Martín, singer) and I both have dual citizens of Spain and France”, he explains. “Our parents are Spanish. There was a lot of migration from Spain to Orléans, where we are from, during the dictatorship of Franco, so there are a lot of Spanish families in Orléans.

It has always been the plan from the beginning to realize the best fusion of metal and flamenco that we possibly can. Every time we write something new, we will try to make that fusion better than we have done before. I’m really glad to hear that you found that noticeable. The metal riffs, the acoustic parts, the ambient stuff, the orchestrations, we try to make all of it sound better and more inspired then the last time.”

The Fantasy of Creating Something Loud

It was not necessarily just Lionel’s Spanish roots that lead him towards the combination of styles he plays with Impureza. “The Spanish guitar game first for me”, he says. “But when I was younger, it was also more difficult for me, because you have the fantasy of making some noise, creating something loud. When you are young and all you have is a classical guitar, that is quite difficult to do. I preferred to play metal, because it simply was more fun. I continued to practice Spanish guitar on the side, but I didn’t put more time into it until much later.

I always loved Spanish and South American movies and westerns. The ambient music in those movies was great. An acoustic guitar can give you more vibrations, more feelings to add to a scene, and increase the power of that scene. When I was little, my dad and I used to watch westerns, Zorro, all that Spanish and Italian stuff, which contains this type of music. Of course, you won’t find much metal in these movies, but I just loved that music. I love the music in the Zorro movies, it’s extremely beautiful. It’s a matter of ambience.

So then came the idea to start a metal band and do something special with it, where I can implement my origins, my culture, and also the ambience that I was a fan of. I tried adding Spanish and acoustic parts to what we were trying to do, and over time, we got more experienced at it, and tried to do it better. Now, we can kind of hear the results of it.”

Reinterpreting Spanish Melodies

“When writing songs, sometimes I leave the riffs as they come to me. Sometimes, I will try to translate the Spanish ideas to the electric guitar. Most of the time, however, I sing a part in my head or out loud, and when I have found something cool that we can use for the band, I will try to play it on the electric guitar.

The flamenco parts are a different story. Because you can’t recreate flamenco. You can take inspiration from it, but flamenco will always remain flamenco. It becomes something else as soon as you don’t play it in the traditional way. To play flamenco, you need to know certain techniques, and you need to know about the culture behind it. When I compose something on my acoustic guitar to write something flamenco-styled, I will compose full-on flamenco, and see if something good will be born out of that or not. Metal is more open.

When I create something, I don’t calculate, or I don’t think about which kind of people it will touch, which kind of person it has to seduce. It may sound a bit selfish, but I like to create things that I will be the first to like. Sometimes that means reinterpreting the Spanish melodies in a metallic manner, like using some notes that are unconventional in metal, or using some flamenco licks to make a Spanish heavy metal riff. If I can make a fusion out of that, I love to do it.

If you want to play flamenco, you need to learn how to play it. And I could learn much more, and get better at it. But you know, we have jobs, we have lives. If I had the time to play guitar all day, I still wouldn’t have reached the level that I am reaching for. That’s part of why I would love Impureza to become bigger than we are, so I could leave my job and just play guitar all day, and master all of it. That’s the dream, haha!”

A Bit Beat-Up

“The entire album was recorded on two guitars. One of them is my first Spanish guitar, which was offered to me by my grandfather in Madrid. The instrument may be twenty-five or thirty years old by now, and it’s a bit beat-up. It’s got a lot of cracks, a lot of imperfections, but it’s my favorite guitar. It was built by a luthier who has a small shop in the main street of Madrid. Truly a little shop; as big as a bathroom.

I tried a lot of different guitars, but this is my favorite one, and I used it to record all three of our albums. It cost 300, maybe 400 euros, but it’s a real high-quality guitar from a luthier. A very stable guitar. Everything acoustic is recorded with good microphones in a good room with foam walls.

The pick-up is used live, to create a good sound and make the sound more balanced. Because if I use the microphone, we can sometimes end up having a lot of noise, things that deteriorate the sound. So its easier to just plug it in. And it sounds quite cool when it’s plugged in, but it’s really a matter of commodity.

I don’t like to record with the pick-ups, because they sound a little bit plastic. There are bands who record with that kind of sound, probably because they like it, or because it works with what they want to make. For example: if you play with a pick, and you play a little more shreddy things, like what Al Di Meola would do, it could work really well. But the real sound of flamenco is captured by microphones, with the ambience in the room.”

All the Sounds You Need

“There is also only one electric guitar on the album: my seven-string Ibanez Prestige RG, going through an Engl amp. I bought the Ironball Special Edition, and I’m really happy with it. I tell all my friends that it’s the best musical purchase I made all my life. It’s a really cool amplifier; you have all the sounds you need inside the head.

That also means that I don’t need to take many affects with me anymore. There’s a delay for the solos, a noise gate for the quality of the sound on parts where you start and stop a lot, and there is a midi controller, just to make my rhythm patch, my lead patch, and my clean patch work. For my pleasure to play with, really. But I generally have all I need to make my sounds in that Engl head.

When we play live, the acoustic parts are either sampled or actually played live with the acoustic guitar, whatever works best for the songs we’re playing. I use both of those to get the flamenco ambience across.”

Linked by History

‘Alcázares’ comes across as a concept album, not unlike its 2017 predecessor ‘La Caída de Tonatiuh’, which drew from Latin American legends and folktales. The new album looks closer to home. “We try to change it up a bit with each album”, Lionel nods. “Maybe we will return to the South American concept again someday, because we like it a lot.

Right before you, I was doing an interview with a Colombian journalist. It’s a continent we adore a lot. Impureza is not only Spanish, but also Hispanic. Because we are a family. We are like brothers. We are linked by the history of Spain and South America.

The story of ‘Alcázares’ takes place in Spain, however. The main theme of the album centers around the templars. We have put a bit of a fantasy spin on it, though, because we are not historians. Instead, there will be a lot of tales about old curses, divinations, things like that. A lot of esotericism.”