Till Birth Do Us Part with Sermon
Turkey's Doom Death Metal band Sermon was founded in 1997 in Izmir. In the same year, the band recorded their first demo containing two songs, 'Cosmic Prisoner'. In 1999, the band developed their musical skills further, recorded their second demo, 'Sea of meanings', and released it under the label of YUCEL Music. After the release of this demo, the band received excellent reviews and ratings from listeners in Turkey and worldwide. The success of this demo facilitated the recognition of the band, and Sermon gained the distinction of being a well-known band in the Turkish metal scene. The demo 'Sea of meanings' was distributed in many countries and has gained remarkable attention. After this success, Sermon was invited to the famous TV show 'Rock Market', broadcasted on TRT, the state television of Turkey. With the concert offers they received, the band performed at many festivals in Izmir. After some line-up changes, the band continued their music with different members and recorded many songs until 2004, but these songs still needed to be released. Towards the end of 2004, the group ended its musical activities. In 2021, Sermon was re-formed by guitarist Cem (the only original member of the Sermon band), and Durmuş joined the band. Cem and Durmuş started to work on the composition of the album they wanted to release, and after the intense tempo, they prepared the songs and completed the recordings. Harun has performed the vocals from Forgotten (another Turkish doom/death band).
We haven't worked with an artist. When searching for a suitable image for the album title, we found a photograph by a graphic designer. After contacting him and having his permission, we started working on the theme and prepared the front cover. The idea behind it is to display the inevitable link between birth and death in a single frame in an iconic way. Whatever the cause, perishment can be taken as the album's main concept. The image on the front cover could reflect the main theme.
The album title is a wordplay. We tried to express the 'Womb To Tomb' phenomenon indirectly. That's why we have used a common phrase and edited it with a new idea. The lyrics are primarily about a cosmic perishment caused by nature's vengeance. There are some other topics, but the central theme is natural devastation. We also took some verses from the gloomy 'Les Fleurs du Mal' by Charles Baudelaire.
In the metal scene, many bands are from various beliefs and thoughts. Some reflect these thoughts and beliefs in their music. Some may be adding some ritualistic elements as well. There are no such thoughts or implementations in our music. But it is natural for musicians to imply their views, beliefs or thoughts on their music from their perspective. When a belief emerges, an antithesiscounter-viewr view also comes in sight. And here there are reflections of it on music too. You can find either religious/faithful bands or bands that declare war against all beliefs. Contrasts will always exist. We find it natural.
Instead of questioning existence and deviating, we are trying to perceive the universe, cosmos and genesis. We aim to understand or make sense of all these things as much as possible if our thinking is sufficient. This is the summary of our modest effort. Big questions need big answers as each of us knows. Many things can be said about this subject, so there is no need to talk much for now.
Every musician or artist has a field of art to express themself. Of course, the meaning of doom metal may vary for each band member. But doom metal is the best type of art in which we can express our feelings and find ourselves. It is the most suitable way for us to understand what we are living and to perceive it. It is about how we look at our lives, where we stand and what we learn from happenings. In other words, it is a clamour of the silence inside us.
In our lives, or during lyric/songwriting, we do not need such substances because we need a healthy body and mind to do these. The imaginary or delusive world is temporary. We are living in the real world. Since we don't use such substances, they don't impact our music.
The things that move us while making music are the will to shape our psychological situation, feelings, and experiences and their effects on our melodies and lyrics. These things guide us when writing music. These open the gates of what we want to tell the outer world.
The most crucial thing that makes us who we are is our passion and loyalty to music. Other factors affecting our creativity can be the music we listen to, books, movies, the things happening around us, positive and negative experiences, and everything that inspires us while making music. As a musician, we first meet with heavy metal in our lives before starting to make music. Heavy metal has always been a lifestyle for us since our childhood. If we hadn't met heavy metal back in time, we wouldn't have been together today, and there would be no Sermon.
Our band is not under the influence of these concepts. We do not get inspired by these when writing songs. The things we listen to indeed have an impact on the music we make. But although we may have different musical tastes, we try to be ourselves when creating stuff. Music is not the only inspiration behind us. There are other afflations too. We do not limit ourselves by focusing on just a single genre. We are trying to reflect different inspirational senses we feel individually with our music.
Are we doomed? If we answer this by referring to Sermon's history, we are. We spoke of that in our release 'Cosmic Prisoner' many years ago. By thinking from a physical perspective, being doomed is a rather short process since our time is limited in this world. Our duration of material existence is restricted, and the perception of time varies in different dimensions. We call this earthly experience a short period of being doomed. We are inside the Kali Yuga Age, and Heavy Metal is one of the natural reflections of this era. It would be impossible to think about the non-existence of dark and depressive genres of Heavy Metal in this period.
