OV HELL's KING Interviewed By METAL ASSAULT

July 4, 2010

On July 2, Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault conducted an interview with bassist Tom Cato Visnes (a.k.a. King ov Hell; OV HELL, GOD SEED, GORGOROTH). You can now listen to the chat below.

"The Underworld Regime", the debut album from OV HELL — the new black metal project featuring DIMMU BORGIR vocalist Shagrath and King — sold around 700 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at position No. 75 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

Released in North America on April 13 via Prosthetic Records, the CD's cover art was created by the Brazilian graphic designer Marcelo Vasco, who has previously worked with such bands as SATYRICON, ENSLAVED, KEEP OF KALESSIN, BORKNAGAR, GORGOROTH, BELPHEGOR and JOB FOR A COWBOY.

"The Underworld Regime" was released in Europe on February 8 via Indie Recordings. The CD was recorded at Earshot Studio and features Shagrath on vocals, King on bass, Frost (SATYRICON) on drums, Ice Dale (ENSLAVED) on guitar and Teloch (NIDINGR, GOD SEED) on guitar. The album was produced by Herbrand Larsen and mastered at the Livingroom studios by Espen Berg and Shagrath in November 2009. King composed all of the music for "The Underworld Regime", while Shagrath wrote all lyrics, with contributions from Silenoz and Sarah Owens.

Commented Shagrath: "The majestic OV HELL has become a band that reflects our roots — raw, ugly, arrogantly blasphemous — with uncompromising truth from two influential Norwegian musicians needing to express our primitive side, straight out OV HELL."

Added King: "It's been a little hell to actually see this music form into a band, but when I'm now listening to the final result, it has been worth the hard work we have put into this album!"

In a recent interview with MetalNews.pl, King stated about OV HELL's debut album, "It is always hard to describe your own music and it usually ends up like meaningless self-promotion of your own album. It will, however, contain music most people would define as black metal. I'm not claiming we have reinvented the wheel, but I don't think have heard any band to date we could be seen as copycats of. I have not heard all the bands in the world and can, of course, be mistaken. "

An e-card for "The Underworld Regime" is available at this location.

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