Swedish deathers Disrupted are back on the stage with their third part of their "Death anthology". "Stinking Death" has turned out to be a cool and pretty rough homage to the Swedish death metal scene in the early 90s (read full review here) and is a must have for everybody who like stuff from that glorious era. Vocalist Mikael Hanni was so nice to answer me some questions about the band, so enjoy reading and check out "Stinking Death" which hopefully will be released as a physical edition, too.

Michael

How are you doing? First of all, cheers to your new album. This one is old school as fuck and a real killer! Unfortunately I haven't seen it distributed anywhere yet and on metal-archives it is just listed as "digital version". I hope you have some plans to change that unsatisfying situation?

Hello! I'm doing fine, thank you very much. The new album is available on two different colour variations on vinyl and is distributed through Trust No One Recordings. As I'm answering these questions we are in the talks for a deal for a CD release as well, so keep your eyes out for news regarding that.

Was it just random that you release a new album every five years or does the number have a special meaning for you?

I wish there was something more interesting to say about this, but the simple answer is laziness. We aren't the most productive band and with everyone having regular day jobs and other stuff to take care of it's not much spare time for creating new music.

With that said there is no life without death metal, so we'll keep it up and hopefully you don't have to wait another 5 years for our next release.

In my review I mentioned some other Swedish bands that are quite similar to you like Entombed, Dismember or just to mention some newer stuff like Lik. How important is the Swedish death metal scene for you personally?

Honestly, I have always been more into black metal, but I would say that extreme music is what made me into the person I am today and it's still a huge part of my daily life. Of course I've listened to Entombed/Nihilist, Dismember etc. during my teenage years and I still get the urge to throw around my fists in the air when hearing some classic HM-2 riff.

Sound-like it is a pretty harsh mix, is that what your music needs? I mean, a more polished sound would probably take away this nasty touch Disrupted spreads….

Filth and stink is what we aim for and we don't want a polished mix. Just as you say that would take away the feeling we want to deliver with our music. Christian Larsson is our guy for mix and mastering for Stinking Death and he did an amazing job in delivering the right sound.

Do you also sometimes think about the box, not just focusing on the typical death metal stuff but also allowing some other (non-metal) influences in your music?

Usually we really don't experiment at all, but I suppose you could say that on Stinking Death we took a little sidestep with the song "Funeral Vomit". On this song we got help from Per Wiberg (ex. Opeth, Switchblade) to deliver some doomy organ parts to add more atmosphere. It ended up as a personal favorite for me so maybe it will be more of that in the future.

When I look at the last two album covers, it comes to my mind that you have a penchant for copper engravings? At least the artworks look like this special design technique even though with a very morbid agenda.

When it comes to artwork we like to give the artist as much freedom as possible. For our latest album for example we just gave Marcus Hansson, who made the artwork, the album title and he made the art out of that. The important thing is that you get the right feeling when you look at the cover.

Lyrically you deal with death. Isn't that topic squeezed out with the time? Where do you get the ideas to write about? I guess it is pretty hard to focus on just the same topic more or less again and again.

I don't think there's any topic that inspires me more than death and decay when I write lyrics. For me the essence of death metal is just that. Songs about death.

Usually we come up with the song titles first and then I write the lyrics based on the title. Coming up with morbid song titles is the easiest part, but in my opinion it's also easier to write lyrics when I have a title/topic as a lead.

I must say that the lyrics on Stinking Death are the best so far in our discography, both in how they sound and story wise.

Do you also put some personal stories into the lyrics or is it just morbid fiction?

If I say that anything from our lyrics was taken from my personal life I don't think this interview can be published. Maybe sometimes I've had an experience in life that can inspire a sentence or two in my lyrics but mostly it's pure morbid fiction inspired by horror movies and novels.

How do you like your death served best? Morbid, pure or stinking?

That's a tough question to answer. How about Morbidly Pure and Stinking?

Will this just be the end of a trilogy or are you going to continue that death story in probably 2030?

Time will tell, but as I said before our aim is to deliver a bit quicker next time.

Will there be a tour where we can see you live and do you have some other upcoming plans for the near future?

Right now we don't have any plans for touring, but we have just started working with Hellbilly Tourbooking and if any booking agent or promoter is interested they are very much welcome to contact hellbilly@hotmail.com for inquiries.

The last words belong to you!

Thank you very much for the support and for showing interest in our music. I urge each and every one of you who read this to support us and other underground bands by attending concerts and buying merch and records. That's the single thing that makes it possible for us to keep doing what we do.

Apart from that, listen to our new album and spread the stink to everyone who may or may not like it.

Cheers!