UN: The Dark Archives, to my ears, is a perfect black metal album. It's raw, analog, and has nothing standing between the listener and the band.

Czar: Thank you very much for that compliment.

UN: Do you think many bands who play this genre these days somewhat miss the point?

Czar: I think most bands in heavy metal miss the point of the genre, which is transcendence. Brutality and displays of musical prowess are unimportant to Charnel Valley; we exist to build an alternate world in the listener’s brain. When I listen to a great metal album— Drudkh’s The Swan Road, Manowar’s Kings of Metal & Into Glory Ride, Megadeth’s Peace duology, Blue Oyster Cult’s Spectres, Thin Lizzy’s Thunder and Lightning, Manilla Road’s Mystification, Doomsword’s Resound the Horn, Summoning’s Minas Morgul, Destroyer 666’s Phoenix Rising, Keep of Kalessin’s Reclaim and Mayhem and Immortal’s last three albums— I am taken to another world. I do not think of some dudes playing guitars and drums and singing and screaming, I leave this planet and soar. Great music inspires me to write my own music and also to write fiction, not burn down churches, get into fistfights and get drunk.

UN: The album only took 5 days to create and record. Was there a certain amount of spontaneity that went into the recording?

Czar: The performance was completely spontaneous, ergo the wild feel and innumerable fuck-ups. One of the reasons it sounds so ‘old school’ to people is because Worm and I are actually playing with each other and reacting to each other; we are (quite obviously) NOT playing to a click track. In this way our music breathes and is a bit more alive and a bit less mathematical than most modern day releases.

UN: Was anything written before hand?

Czar: Yes. The songs were composed for a few months prior to the actual recording and we played our basic ideas to one another over the telephone and made corrections that way (Worm and I live in different States; he’s in Michigan and I’m in New York).

UN: Would you say that overall the music is about creating atmosphere?

Czar: Yes, emphatically so. Atmosphere/world-building is what Charnel Valley is all about as is my other heavy metal endeavor, a traditional metal band with a weird streak called Wombatt (check out wombatt.com for sound samples).

UN: Black metal to me has always been music that at face value is very extreme and harsh, but underneath it is a genre that really can really challenge what you expect from music and create an atmosphere that no other genre can.

Czar: Again, you are completely correct. This is why Worm and I have a black metal band and write black metal music. Although there are some good death metal bands— most notably Carcass, Asphyx, Pentacle, Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal and Behemoth— death metal isn’t as captivating for me. Most death metal composers have an affinity for ‘brutality,’ which often results in haphazardly arranged music meant to be shocking. In actuality, most death metal is just a disjointed and emotionless display of musical prowess.

UN: I was amazed that the album was recorded with only two microphones. It is definitely stripped down, but it's a tremendous sounding album.

Czar: Thank you. We hit hard, play loud and received some help wrangling our raucous sound. Hails to Kevin Kelly and Jeff Herriott, who mixed and mastered The Dark Archives in respectively.

UN: Do you think analog is the ideal recording method for black metal?

Czar: Much, much more important than the technology we used, is the way in which we played the album and the material itself. The fuck-ups throughout the release give it character and humanity, as does the buzzing, burping raw production. Finding the line between clarity and obscurity is very important in any band’s sound, especially in black metal.

UN: I find it rather amusing that a lot of the reviews I keep reading for the album slam the production. Black metal has never been about strong production values. That said however the album doesn't even sound bad. Being a journalist yourself, does it bother you when people show a general lack of knowledge for the music they are trying to review?

Czar: A small percentage of the journalists who write about metal are both literate and musically literate. As a result, surface things like production and artwork are discussed far more often than the most important element, which is of course songwriting. How can someone review an album of heavy metal and not discuss riffs/riffing techniques? That said, the overwhelming majority of the reviews we’ve read have been positive, and have actually talked a little bit about the proffered music, which was a pleasant surprise.

UN: Just like the music, the artwork is primitive and simple. Was it important to have an art style that matched the music?

Czar: It is ESSENTIAL that the artwork matched the spirit of the music. Bland computer graphics and manipulated photographs are the industry standard now and I wish it were not so. The first type of artwork every child produces is illustration (or possibly singing if he is subjugated by such training in church), and everyone draws differently. Charnel Valley does not sound like another band— every critic compares us to different bands, some of which I’ve never even heard or don’t like— and similarly, our album cover does not look like the last 200 to come out on Century Media or Metal Blade. The cover is a crude, fantastic world and that is what our music is. Five albums down the road, expect to see that same logo and our fifth primitive, hand-drawn cover.

UN: You dedicated the album to the memory of Quorthon. Obviously he had a hand in starting the genre, but in your own words what made him and Bathory so special?

Czar: Worm made that dedication; he is a huge Bathory fan and it is the Viking-era in particular that captured his black heart. The epic compositions, patient developments and glorious tones of the Viking releases stir something deep within Worm’s Finnish blood.

UN: Just a quick one, where exactly does the band name come from? It's quite different for this style.

Czar: As with the cover and song titles, we wanted a band name that conjured an image, and not of Satan because neither of us believe in that guy…or Santa Claus for that matter. I read a lot of obscure old authors— the guys who were H.P. Lovecraft’s predecessors and peers (C.A. Smith, R. E. Howard, A. Machen, A. Blackwood, R. Maturin, E.R. Eddison, M. R. James, etc.)— and the word charnel comes up regularly in that period. It is NOT the word carnal, which has to do with sexuality. Charnel describes a place where you put dead bodies. A valley filled with corpses is an image that fits our music.

UN: The Dark Archives was my introduction to the band. Have you guys released anything else?

Czar: The Dark Archives was our first endeavor.

UN: Will you guys once again be working with Paragon on your next release?

Czar: Jim and his crew have done a great job spreading the Charnel Valley gospel and it seems very likely that we will continue our fruitful collaboration with Paragon in the future. That Jim enjoys The Dark Archives so much means a lot to both of us.

UN: Dark Archives was recorded in 2004. When do you think a new album will be in the works?

Czar: The new album has already been recorded, we just need to mix it down and master it. The release is entitled The Igneous Race. I am not a modest person (to be modest is often to be false, which I’m not), nor am I stupidly self-congratulatory when praise is unwarranted. The Dark Archives is a good album that Worm and I are both proud of; The Igneous Race is an excellent album that will further impress our fanbase and doubtlessly turn even more people on to Charnel Valley. We spent a lot of time writing The Igneous Race and the variety of the compositions and consistent quality of the riffing is the proof. We recorded in the same spontaneous manner, though our playing has improved some since the first album. Songs like “Gray Twilight: A Traitor’s Redemption,” “Brigand,” “Carry Their Bodies To The Horizon,” and “The Wretched Ones,” are the best manifestations of our aesthetics thus far. We wanted to make a diverse black metal album that would surmount the blustering winds of time and the ephemeral, fickle tastes of the scene, and we have. The Igneous Race will outlive both of us.