With:	Alexandru Cozaciuc, Florentin Popa
Conducted by:	RaduP (video)
Published:	08.06.2020
Band profile:	Descend Into Despair

This is the first time I interviewed a band from my own country, and it was especially weird considering I personally knew both of the folks I was interviewing. Take my fan status with a grain of salt if you want and accuse me of doing this interview as a favor all you want, but the truth is that I found out about them through this website, specifically through this review, and only later did I get to befriend a few of them. And I listened to both of their recent two albums enough times to know that I genuinely enjoy them, and I'm not just listening to be a good friend. Regardless, there were a few things about the new album and about the band in general that I was curious enough to ask about and patient enough to wait to do it in an interview. In the meantime you can read our review of Opium.




Radu: We are here with Xander [Alexandru Coziacuc] and Florentin Popa from Descend Into Despair, and also Korbea Pleataneagra on SoundCloud, and they're going to answer some questions for us.

Florentin Popa: Let's not forget that Xander is Tabula Razna on SoundCloud as well.

Radu: Yes, we have a lot of SoundCloud rappers here.

Xander Coziacuc: Of course.

Radu: A lot of bands have their takes on the concept of light and dark, but very few of them dig so deep into analogies with light as a physical wave that has different colors. Could you tell me more about that?

XC: Well, the thing with all the different colors is strongly emphasized on the first song. The idea for it was to represent light as an abstract form, and in order to do that we decided to dissect it through a prism, therefore describing each color individually, only to later on fuse them all together back into the sum of the small parts, which is white light, hence the song begins with white noise as a symbol of that. And at the start of the song you can also hear the whole womb thing, which we thought to be the best representation of the color red. It starts with red and ends with white. That's how we put it through the first song.

FP: We thought we can add a twist to the light and dark thing that a lot of people do, because it's just harsh contrast and it's easy, it's a cliché, so instead of just light and darkness we've kind of cycled from darkness, from the absolute silence in the beginning of the album, through colors up to white, which is all colors combined, but sort of nothing at the same time. [Ed: It is at this point that I realize how much FP here sounds like Henning Wehn.]

Radu: Mhm. So they are quite two sides of the same coin, in a way.

FP: Yeah. So instead of just showing black and white, we've chosen to go through all the shades, all the colors. But fundamentally they represent the same - they're just not put out there without any variation.

Radu: Okay, so that is only represented in the first song. What would you say is the concept for the other two?

XC: As the first song represents light, the second one, the transition from light to darkness, and of course the third song would be darkness. We tried to do this in a very abstract way, tried to represent the idea of light or the idea of darkness without any? extra meanings, I'd say, added to that. It's a bit hard to explain. Yeah, maybe Korbea could pick it up from here.

FP: No, it's precisely what he said. (laughs)

XC: (laughs)

Radu: Very helpful.

FP: I think we're trying to say is that we tried to avoid the cliché where light is always that super bright, super happy thing and that's it, and dark is always that mournful, funeral - well, dark - cold thing, and we didn't try to ascribe a certain meaning to either of them. They mean different things as we go through different emotional moments in the album.

XC: Exactly like that. That's the best way of putting it. We were really focused on the process of abstraction, so in order to do that we had to use certain tones here and there to better paint the idea of light or darkness. Hence the main sort of things present in each song.

FP: Yeah. It's sort of "show, but don't tell", which is a good trick to do when you're writing literature or music or anything. A good album, especially a good ambient album, for instance, kind of shows what it means just through music. Like if you, for instance, listen to, I don't know, Autumn Aurora from Drudkh, you know that one?

Radu: Yep.

FP: You know it's autumn. You don't even have to read the titles. You have that sound there. That's kind of what we're trying to do. Of course lyrics and everything is supporting that idea, but what we're striving to achieve is the music being able to convey certain emotions without the need for much else.

Radu: Okay. Why exactly did you choose the title "Opium"?

XC: Initially, it was supposed to be called something else, but it was a bit abstract. We originally had the idea of a three-song structure for the album and the names of the songs were supposed to resemble opium - or they ended up resembling opium from a coincidence and that fitted really well, and also opium is a symbol of something else that can bring light or darkness sometimes, so we thought it would be a very strong word to use to represent the concept of light and darkness.

FP: Yeah, I think we had them like "Ω" and "Π" and then the Aum symbol (ॐ), like the? I don't know what? Indian Buddhist kind of script thing. We wanted to go full esoterical on it, but it didn't seem all that realistic, so we just kept the title and changed the tracks.

Radu: So you didn't do it to flex on the Chinese for having lost to the British. [Ed: Flexing on the Chinese is a good way to get reeducated these days.]

FP: (laughs)

XC: (laughs) We never take, uh, political stances with our music.

FP: I don't think that the opium is the most offensive thing. We could just remind them of tea and would have had, like, a teacup on the album cover, which would have been less controversial than the sort-of artful nude that we have, which Facebook still wants to block because it has hints of nipples and now Facebook cannot stand hints of nipples. So no more wet t-shirts on Facebook. [Ed: Damn, gotta change my profile pic]

Radu: Oh, no. And you have some problems advertising it on Facebook now, right?

XC: Yeah, of course, we've been struggling with this for the past few days, as Facebook considers the image to be either "sexually explicit" or "scary", yeah.

Radu: It is indeed very scary to me.

XC: (laughs) Yeah, well, compared to other things you can see on Facebook, I just can't understand this logic at all.

FP: Then again, in a funeral band, you're used to scary things.

Radu: Facebook is a family-friendly business. Please, none of your depressing music. We need life-affirming music.

XC: Well, it looks like there is no place for art on Facebook anymore, so what can you do?

Radu: Yes, of course. How the hell did you get Tara Vanflower to sing and Greg Chandler to master?

XC: Well, for Tara, we've all been huge fans of Lycia for quite a while, and the process was pretty simple. We just looked her up, found her, proposed a deal, and she gladly accepted. It was a really good collaboration. We're very satisfied with it. With Greg, it was more or less the same thing. I mean, being in this scene, you get to know people here and there, and we've spoken to Greg before. Very nice guy. Of course he's the mastermind behind Esoteric, and also a very good audio engineer. So we came forward to him with a proposition and he gladly accepted as well.

Radu: So all you have to do is just ask.

XC: Yep, just ask. That was it.

Radu: It's what I usually do with my interviews anyway. [Ed: Is it possible to learn this power?]

XC: There we go, there we go. With internet, we're all connected now. It's easier.

FP: And everyone is bored in the quarantine, so it's even easier now.

XC: Yeah, exactly.

Radu: Well, we should extend the quarantine. I haven't gotten around to interviewing everyone I wanted.

XC: No, fuck no, man. We're all sick of this.

FP: We can start by just sneezing in the Subway. [Ed: It took several passes for me to realize that they were talking about the food thing and not the choo-choo thing.]

Radu: I'll see what I can do about that. You still don't have Subway in Cluj, right? [Ed: Ah, so that's how you pronounce it. Damn Europeans all have to pronounce "j" differently.]

XC: No, not yet, not yet, yeah. Word on the street is that any moment now, any moment now!

FP: I mean, they started things in Suceava, so I have no doubts that they'll do it in Cluj as well.

XC: I certainly hope so.

Radu: Why is the rent that high?

XC: Sorry, the rent?

Radu: (forcefully) The rent.

XC: (laughs) Ah, good question.

FP: Ask the landlords, man.

XC: Yeah, ask the landlords. That would be a good place to start.

FP: I think everyone's imagining that it's some sort of Silicon Valley/San Francisco-upon-Someș. The level of expectation is quite high and everybody assumes that if you came to Cluj, you work in IT, so they ask for fitting prices for the rent. It doesn't mean that everybody works in IT, but it's also encouraged by the consumers. I looked up some rent groups and people are straight-up asking, "Hey, dudes, I'mma pay, like, a thousand euros for a two-room apartment," and when customers beg to get raped, there's nothing you can do but give them some more.

Radu: Of course.

XC: But that might change now since more people are starting to work from home and most likely don't have to live here, so prices might go down.

Radu: Hm. Well, if you can work from home, you don't necessarily have to work from Cluj, either.

XC: Yeah, exactly, that's my point.




Radu: Yeah. So you have very interesting band photos, which I noticed for both this and the previous album. What did you hope to capture with them and how do you tie them to the concept of this album?

XC: Oh. We really tried to do something different and like all other aspects of this album we tried to make them special. That was the main goal. We didn't want to just go in the studio, pose, have our arms bent, look aggressive like most bands do. We really tried to do something different, make a piece of art of the photoshoot itself. And tying it in with the concept - I think it's pretty obvious, since it's all the black paint on white, so it has darkness engulfed in light. That's how we tie it in. And I think we did really well; we're all really proud of how the photoshoot ended up.

Radu: This thing with the painting and the photograph of you, there is some painting in these photographs and there is a photograph of a painting as your cover art, with a model on it. So you're kind of blending -

XC: We really tried to tie it all together to have a consistent art style when it comes to the visual stuff.

FP: Yeah, I think it's sort of a subtle statement that we're trying to blur the lines between art and reality, if you want to be pretentious about it, or it's like that old meme with, "Yo, dude, I put X on your X so you can X why you X!" I put a painting in your album so that you - ah, I don't even know what we've done. Too many layers.

XC: (laughs) It turned out good. That's what matters.

Radu: You could have just taken an old Beksinski painting and be done with it.

XC: I mean, I'm a visual artist myself, so I felt a bit responsible to make something special in that regard. I couldn't just have taken an old painting and that's it. I don't know if we have a lot to gain from it? Absolutely not compared to what we invested into it when it comes to time and effort and so on, but the satisfaction of it is way greater than anything we could have gained. So I'm glad to say that the cover stands as an art piece itself.

Radu: Mhm. Yeah.

XC: And that's the main thing here. We're trying to do art. We're not just trying to be another trendy musician and have success and all that.

Radu: Yeah, because you don't have success -

FP: Oh, we'd very much like to have success, don't get me wrong. If the next avant-garde thing that we come up with is metal twerking, we are going to twerk.

XC: Absolutely, man. Spoiler for our next release. It's gonna have metal twerking, absolutely.

Radu: I can't wait for some chugga-chugga riffs.

XC: Oh, yeah. Be ready for that.

Radu: The album ends with a spoken dialogue about knowing and forgetting someone. What can you tell us about it? [Ed: Ah, now I learn the truth.]

XC: The dialogue part was meant to sound like it's taken from a movie. [Ed: I kind of thought it was.] Our idea was that the listener gets to that part and asks himself, "Where is this from?" [Ed: I did.]

FP: And they won't be able to find it, because it's a sample we created from scratch, in actually writing it and having two actors perform it. [Ed: Well, great.]

XC: And the idea was that if the listener can't find it, he will actually feel a bit of forgetfulness himself. And since the song's main motif is forgetfulness, it all blends in. And of course the dialogue is about forgetfulness, since one of the two is suffering from Alzheimer's, so it all ties in pretty well. [Ed: What were we talking about?]

Radu: Bold of you to assume that somebody's gonna look for it. [Ed: I would. I've only seen one Romanian movie.]

XC: Yep.

FP: And they're not gonna find it.

Radu: I did look at the lineup to see who are the actors performing it and I did notice that one of them is Bogdan Neciu, who is from Arad and is kind of a high school friend of mine.

XC: Really? Small world!

Radu: Yeah. I was under the impression that he would still be Arad, but I forgot that four years have passed and he's probably in college in Cluj already.

FP: Paying that chunky rent. [Ed: I'm not exactly sure that "chunky" is what he says, but it just sounds too good.]

XC: I think he's done with college already now, most likely.

Radu: Yeah, but since I left for Timișoara, I kind of imagined that the rest of the world would freeze in place, everything in Arad would stay the same.

XC: Oh, I know the feeling. It's the same with my hometown as well.

Radu: Since releasing Synaptic Veil, you started performing with some household names in doom. How did this experience help shape up the new album?

XC: I don't think it actually had that big of an influence on what we did, performing live. Of course we really enjoyed performing live, don't get me wrong, but the live experience didn't have much to add into our style of what we did, our concepts, our beliefs. It's fun and we also plan on doing some special live shows, once this whole quarantine bullshit clears up, and as we've done with our style on the album, we also want it to be something else. Not exactly a concert, but more on the performance side, on the installation art side. That's the direction we're trying to push our live performances, to something different.

Radu: Okay, so it will have strippers.

XC: Definitely, definitely. We might even strip ourselves.

FP: This is where the avant-garde working comes in as well.

XC: Yeah. There we go, man. It's all out there.

FP: I mean, metal has great episodes of involuntary nudity. I think there was an article about "best 20 nude pictures in metal". They got the guy from Taake and Vrangsinn from Carpathian Forest. We wanna do that, but not to be an accident. [Ed: It's my job to know about trends in metal, but you guys can keep this one.]

Radu: (stifling his constant giggling) Of course. Well, to be honest, I haven't seen any doom band performing nude, so that would be a start.

XC: There we go. We're gonna be the first. You're not ready, trust me.

FP: Bros before clothes, man.




Radu: Are you part of any other band now?

XC: Not at the moment, no.

Radu: Other than the Tabula Razna project.

XC: Oh, yes. I tried to do some electronic things here and there. Most of us are quite passionate about it. We might launch our electronic side project pretty soon, as we're currently collaborating with several local musicians. All of us have started their own. Yeah, so far, so good. We're having a lot of fun playing with synths and creating, trying different things.

Radu: Did these synth experiments have any impact on the synth sounds that were in the new album? Because I found that the new album had a lot of interesting synth moments.

XC: Absolutely, absolutely.

Radu: Then keep doing it!

XC: That was one of the main things with the new album. We've discovered that old-school analog synth sounds go really, really well with doom and we plan on doing it more from now on. [Ed: Good. That was my favorite part.]

FP: Even more.

XC: Yeah, I think with this album we have truly found our own identity, what sets us apart from other bands. Expect more of that.

Radu: Okay. Was Deos the first band other than Descend Into Despair that you were part of?

XC: Uh? (laughs) The first one that I'm willing to talk about, yeah. Yeah, there was another one, back in the day when I was a teenager, like 16 years old?

FP: What happens on Encyclopedia Metallum stays there.

Radu: (laughs)

FP: I mean, everyone was a member of Donkerland, so? I'll leave it at that.

XC: I wasn't, I was talking about something else, but, uh? the grindcore days.

Radu: Oh yes. And you even had that parody black metal thing [that directly served as inspiration for my own], right? [Ed: I'm leaving it to Radu to fill in all these gaps while they giggle about their inside jokes. I've done enough research into the Romanian underground for one Sunday afternoon.]

FP: Yes.

XC: Yes, that was a thing as well. We can have fun from time to time. We're not serious, grumpy musicians 24/7. Of course, we're all human beings. We deserve to have fun.

FP: But the pain we put into our music is real, though.

XC: (laughs up an entire concert scale)

FP: Nothing matters.

XC: We do have to make sure?

Radu: On this thing with humor and emotions, a lot of the humor these days, and especially the memes, have quite a depressive turn. Why do you think they go so well hand-in-hand?

XC: I think I'm gonna leave this to the meme expert over here. Florentin, please take this one.

FP: "I'm gonna leave this to the meme expert over here"? I don't know, man. I think it's finally time for people to admit that they're sad. They first did it ironically and now there's less and less irony about it.

Radu: Mhm.

FP: And it's an honest thing. It's fine. One of the things that scares you when you're admitting that you're sad or you have such negative feelings is that you're gonna be judged for it, but if you put it in a humorous context, people will laugh and avoid judging because they can identify. You can identify more easily with something that makes you laugh than with just some random shit. It makes the pill to swallow a bit sweeter, I guess. [Ed: Damn, the meme hell chat got real.]

Radu: (wondering how Florentin feels about his mother) Mhm.

XC: Of course. And finally depression has come to be more accepted than it used to be. Back in the day - well, not back in the day, but a few years ago, if you were depressed, people would instantly judge you, call you lazy or bullshit like that, and then keep telling you, "Oh, you have all these nice things, you shouldn't be depressed!" There isn't exactly, well, people that deserve to be depressed and people that do not. It can happen to everyone.

Radu: But do you think it can go the other way, where it kind of becomes not only socially acceptable to be depressed, but quite encouraged, in a way, like it becomes cool to be depressed? [Ed: Yes. Regular depression is sexy, but depression signaling? The greatest.]

FP: Yeah, I think we're close to that point, because it's becoming more or less of a social norm and some people take advantage of that just to get attention, like, "Ehhh, I'm so depressed, I'm making memes about being depressed," but they have a perfectly fine existence at the same time. It's kind of how it's always been; the currents between what's socially acceptable and what's not are shifting.

Radu: We need some depression gatekeeping.

FP: (laughs) Yeah? or otherwise in ten years we'll be a happycore band, just to swim against the stream.

Radu: Okay. Do you think Descend Into Despair would get more attention if you weren't from Romania?

XC: Wow? I think so? depends where not in Romania. I mean, there are certain countries that offer help to young and aspiring musicians through funds or grants offered by certain governments, like in Norway, I think, and in Australia, they have that for sure. We've funded everything ourselves. It was kind of hard to do so because we really wanted a good production, wanted to offer our music the production quality it deserves, which it got, absolutely, but that wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all. But we're happy with it.

Radu: Especially with the rent.

XC: Yeah, especially with the rent and salaries and everything.

FP: In a certain sense, I don't think we would have had more exposure necessarily if we weren't from Romania, but I would say that being from Romania or Eastern Europe in general is kind of playing this on hard mode, so if we succeed, each success is at least more meaningful for us because it's been in more of a struggle. Also, you have to think about the local scene, which is close to inexistent in Romania?

Radu: Especially the doom one.

FP: Yeah. Metal and doom in general are not really popular genres in this country - not that people are to blame for it, because people like what they like. They also like what they hear, so if they are not exposed to a lot of diversity, you cannot expect them to grow fond of new genres. But that's more of a thing related to culture than to, I don't know, politics, poverty, or under-promotion. It's just how it is.

Radu: Yeah, because you didn't really have that many performances in Romania. Most of them were at certain festivals in Bucharest.

FP: Yeah, precisely. Just because the local scene is not that large. First, not great music consumers, then not a lot of people would go to live concerts, and not many in the genre, either. I mean, the best we can do in Romania is Untold [Festival]. Not that it's bad, by any means, but even that is kind of an average festival by European standards. I mean, there are metal fests that equal it, and metal is not the most accessible genre.

Radu: Well, I doubt you'll ever make it to Untold, but who knows?

FP: Maybe the electronic project.




Radu: Let's hope. Do you have any favorite releases from this year?

FP: Ah, don't do that? Uh, Xander, I don't think we can hear you.

XC: (indistinct rumbling)

FP: Your mic's weak. Let me just open Pitchfork? (laughs)

XC: (muffled speaking)

FP: Xander, we - can you hear him? I can't hear him very clearly.

Radu: It's just like my office meetings. [Ed: Haha, your office has meetings]

XC: (vaguely human noises)

FP: You should check your mic. Maybe lower it, if it's on your desk. Is it boosted? Audio guy having trouble with audio. To think that he pre-produces the songs.

Radu: (laughs)

XC: (eldritch gurgling)

FP: Hey. It's bad, man, it's really bad.

XC: (mumble mumble, toil and trumble)

FP: Oh? Is it the wire? Is it the boosting in Windows?

Radu: Should we start the call again?

FP: I think so.

(furious typing, clicking, and Skyping sounds)

[Ed: While they do that, I have some free time to wonder about things. What if you were conducting an in-person interview and suddenly the other person's voice vanished and you had to make them leave the room and walk back in to fix the volume?]

(more optimistic Skype sounds)

XC: Is it any better now?

Radu: Yeah, [something in Romanian that I'm not going to try to transcribe].

FP: Yes.

XC: Okay, okay. Awesome, awesome. So what were we talking about? Oh, that's right.

Radu: Favorite releases for this year.

FP: Favorite releases this year.

XC: Oh. There haven't been that many, as far as I know. I only know that Bell Witch are supposed to release one and I'm really looking forward to that. It's mostly been clouded by bad news, the release schedules. It wasn't necessarily a good time to release metal, but what can you do? I don't know. Maybe you could refresh my memory when it comes to releases, as I don't know anything? I can't think of anything else.

Radu: I will send you a list of 100 albums I reviewed this year. [Ed: At this point, Xander's mic broke again under the strength of Radu's flexing.]

XC: Dude. I don't know, maybe I should have checked that out.

FP: (laughs) Maybe we should listen to some music, man. Enough making music.

XC: I have sort of moved away from metal?

FP: Yeah, so if we told you our favorite releases, I don't think there would be much metal in there.

Radu: No problem. I like the new Grimes as well. [Ed: You mean her kid?]

XC: Oh, I think the new Floating Points is from this year, so that's a really, really good album. Yeah. What else came out this year?

FP: Ehhh?

Radu: I can see you pulling up Pitchfork and Rate Your Music.

FP: Yes, it is? I like Wolf Club, for instance. Runaways is a good synthwave album and it's fun. And I bet that The Midnight will have a release this year, but I expect it to be shit because now you can hear them in McDonald's. They've, uh, lowered the threshold there.

Radu: Well, I can't wait to hear you in McDonald's.

FP: I loved Together To The Stars. I don't know if it's this year or last year's, but Together To The Stars was good. Also Panopticon's release -

Radu: Those two splits?

FP: The very bluegrassy ones. Yes, those were pretty great. I liked that a lot. What else was there? Uh? Sunn O))).

XC: Oh, yeah, yeah. That release, Sunn O))). Thank you for reminding me. Two albums this year -

Radu: Those were last year. [Ed: Boy, were they ever.]

XC: Last year?

FP: Last year, 2019 still qualifies. Also None had a great album. I don't know if it was this year or?

Radu: It was last year.

FP: Last year. Of course.

Radu: (giggles with 100 reviews) You're really not keeping up with it.

FP: Well, given the fact that the last three months of this year did not properly exist, we cannot be blamed for it. Oranssi Pazuzu had a good-ish one? Spectral Lore had the same kind of ambient that I like, but it's nothing new? but I did enjoy it. In terms of more metal bands.

XC: There was also? Igorrr released a new album.

FP: Yes.

XC: But I don't think it's actually that good of a follow-up from Savage Sinusoid. Still good, but kind of a step down.

Radu: Yeah, a lot of people seem to think that way. [Ed: Not me. I thought it was great. I think you're just peachy, Igorrr.]

FP: I liked Thy Catafalque, but I'll be hated because I enjoy a one-man Hungarian band that much. (laughs in Magyar)

Radu: That's not very Romanian of you.

XC: Same opinion when it comes to Katatonia. [Ed: That they're not very Romanian?]

Radu: Mhm.

XC: Kind of a step behind, step down.




Radu: Okay, enough of releases from this year and mostly last year. If you could work with any living director for a video for one of your songs, who would it be?

XC: (without a second's hesitation, as if he could see the poor, unsuspecting editor-in-chief diligently typing away at his laptop, wanting nothing more than to hear a different answer to this question for once) David Lynch, man.

FP: (laughs) I could have predicted! [Ed: Yes. So could I.]

XC: Of course, there's no - that's the best balance of weird and strange and? yeah. We would totally do that.

FP: Yes. I agree with David Lynch.

Radu: If I get in touch with him, I'll tell him. [Ed: I will let you interview David Lynch for this site if you can make it happen. We'll throw that in the Post Malone folder.]

XC: Please do, man, please do.

Radu: Korbea hasn't performed live with the band, right?

XC: No, no, not yet.

FP: Yet.

Radu: Why is that?

FP: I was a lazy fuck and I had to attend to my corporate drone existence last year and the year before and some other years before that. But now I think I've got the time and also the motivation to put some elbow grease in and actually play live. I'm also very shy, as you might know.

Radu: You weren't shy when I met you. [Ed: What juicy back story are we missing?]

FP: I also like being the "dude behind the curtains" kind of role. I enjoy it a lot, too, and I'm really lazy going to rehearsals, but I hope I'll fix that.

Radu: Well, I could tell you're being the guy behind the curtains. You answered most of the questions.

FP: I will shut up now.

Radu: Okay, so when are you dropping something on SoundCloud again?

FP: That's off-topic and we should focus on the band topics, as they were not given enough time during this interview.

Radu: Of course.

FP: (laughs)

XC: Christ, man. Coming back to Korbea, his collaboration was very much appreciated with every single album that we did and besides me he is the second-oldest member in the band and he is way better with words than I am, as you might have noticed, of course, and that is why he is the man behind the lyrics, our lyrics.

Radu: You also released a book of poetry, right?

FP: I had two, but I bet no one will know those lyrics as much as the lyrics to the Descend Into Despair songs, which is ironic, but also kind of pleasing.

Radu: Okay. I doubt any of our readers actually know Romanian anyway, so? [Ed: My ~18%-complete Duolingo course and I would beg to differ, if I knew how to do so in Romanian.] Speaking of Romania, I think that part, the dialogue part at the end of the album, is the only Romanian thing since "Plânge Glia De Dorul Meu", right?

XC: Yes, you are correct.

Radu: And why is that?

XC: We thought it was more personal and we've had several people tell us that they actually like Romanian songs and we wanted to use more of that. It was more on the theme of the movie, made it sound like the movie.

FP: It's also practical reasons. It's hard to find actors that would sound natural in English in Romania.

XC: Yeah, it had a bigger emotional impact on ourselves using Romanian for that part, as it also ties in with some experiences that we've had. We plan on using Romanian more often in the future, of course. There was a plan to do a whole song in Romanian for this album, but due to consistency, considering that there are only three songs, we stuck to English.

Radu: Okay. That would be it. Do you have anything to add to your fans here?

XC: Oh, I don't know, man. Listen to our music. If you like it, share it, play it for friends, because we're really struggling with that at the moment, getting out there, getting some more engagement, more activity. Yeah, we're really proud of our album and I think you're gonna enjoy it. Give it a listen, please.

FP: Yeah, my message is "buy the album", but I know most people won't buy it, they will torrent it, 'cause it's already on torrents.

XC: Yeah, it has, like, 200 downloads already, which makes me kind of proud.

FP: So my recommendation would be if you're torrenting it, at least spread the news, because exposure is still a gift. At least give something back and build some nice hype for the guys whose album you've nicked. And yeah, we love you and you're the best fans ever. I don't know what you like about us, but good choice.

XC: (laughs)

Radu: Okay. Thank you.

XC: Thank you, Radu. That was really nice.

FP: Thanks, man.

Thanks to SSUS for transcibing the whole thing and pretending to understand Romanian culture. Here's the pics I took of Descend Into Despair's performance at last year's Metal Gates Festival: