The Malevolent journey
The earliest sprout of Malevolent can be dated back 30 years with composer Nikolaas, who hears the symphonic elements of the band Tiamat for the first time and fell in love immediately with the orchestral elements combined with heavy guitars and grunts.
He than founded a melodic gothic metal band with a soprano singer late nineties. This band (Keltgar) was signed by Uxicon records and performed many shows together with After Forever and Epica. That's how Nikolaas got to know Mark Jansen from Epica (and After Foverer in that time period).. After that band split up, Nikolaas took a long sabbatical from composing music, until a few years ago, he felt the urge to compose again. He used to compose always by starting from guitar, but now he decided to start composing with the orchestral parts, and give them a more prominent place in the mix.
Instead of getting his inspiration from past and current (symphonic) metal, Nikolaas found his inspiration in film and classical music. You can definitely hear influences from movies like "Lord of the Rings" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" in his composition style.
After writing the first songs with only his grunts and programmed female vocals, Nikolaas decided that the songs certainly could benefit from the added feel from a real talented female vocalist. As he wanted to incorporate Celtic, Medieval and Eastern elements in the female voice singing style. He found the incredibly talented Spanish singer Celica Soldream. Celica had the vocal capabilities Nikolaas was looking for and that Celtic/Medieval/Eastern touch. Luckily for Nikolaas Celica was willing to try the vocals for the first songs. Needless to say she did an amazing job.
She got more and more interested into the musical project and her talent convinced Nikolaas to give Celica more and more musical freedom to create her own lines and lyrics. The combination of the these two musicians created a chemistry that led to the Malevolent debut EP.
Nikolaas planned to record and mix all the instruments in his own studio in France. Celica did her (preproduction) vocal parts in her own studio in Spain. The songs were almost ready to be released, as the two musicians decided to collaborate with Joost Vandenbroek. Joost is the producer behind Powerwolf, Epica, Ayreon,... He was what the band needed to lift the entire production of the next level.
It was around that time Nikolaas proposed to add some guest grunts to the song "Creations". The grunts had to complement Nikolaas' voice. The excellent fit was found in Mark Jansen from Epica. Mark has a grunt that sits in a higher frequency spectrum as the grunt of Nikolaas, so they blended together nicely. The addition of Mark as a guest vocalist also helped getting a lot of attention for the release of the debut EP.
Eventually guitars, bass guitar, grunts and orchestration was still recorded at Nikolaas his studio in France, but the lead vocals and drums were recorded in the Netherlands. Joost took care of mixing the entire EP.
"When the EP was ready for release we signed with Necktwister record label. We first released two singles (Gaze and Ways) before releasing the EP just before christmas 2023. The reactions have been overwhelming so far. We couldn't be happier."
Fun fact: All the titles of the songs are chosen to work together with the band name (for example Malevolent 'Creations').
Binaural experience: As the music of Malevolent has a high cinematic character the band decided that an immersive mix (Dolby atmos/surround) would really enhance the total experience. But who has a decent Dolby atmos or surround setup at home to listen to an immersieve/surround mix? Probably only a handfull of people. That's why we decided to do a binaural mix for the song Creations. A binaural mix is a special mix that recreates the immersive/surround experience when you listen to it on regular headphones. So anyone with headphones (or earpods) can experience the music in much more immersive, surround setting. Those binaural mixes are a lot more common in pop or EDM. Malevolent might be one of the first metal bands to do a binaural mix. We will probably make this binaural mix available for download soon.
"We cannot predict the future ofcourse, but we have a lot planned for 2024. We are already working on new songs. We will probably also do few cover songs. We are working on more videos from for promoting the EP. One of which will be filmed somewhere in Spain. We are also preparing live shows. As we are mainly a two person band, supported by studio musicians, we are now working on putting together a strong live band for upcoming concerts and festivals. But main priority lies on writing more songs."
MALEVOLENT
Nikolaas Van Riet (composer/guitars/synths/producer)
Celica Soldream (lead vocals)
Debut EP title: Malevolent
(released on December 21, 2023)
Format: Digital CD-EP / Physical CD-EP/Vinyl
Lebel: Necktwister
Distribution: Sonic Rendezvous
Tracklist:
01. Gaze
02. Ways
03. Light
04. Creations
05. The Awakening (cd bonus track)
Watch on Youtube: Cinematic metal band Malevolent - EP PREVIEW -
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