MATTI KARKI On DISMEMBER's New Music: 'We Want To Keep Our Style, But Still It Has To Be Different In A Way'

In an interview with Hells Headbangers' Justin Horval at last month's Maryland Deathfest, vocalist Matti Karki of Swedish death metal pioneers DISMEMBER spoke about a possible follow-up to the band's 2008's album "Dismember". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I know we have to do something. First of all, we need to, or we want to, keep our style, but still it has to be different in a way, because there's a lot of bands who does the old stuff. So we have to find our new niche, what we're doing. But at this moment, I think we have a couple of riffs. The guys have been writing at home. We haven't heard it. We haven't done anything. The only thing we've been talking about, yeah, we need to do a new album. And we have to find a way to make songs across three different countries — Fred [Estby, DISMEMBER drummer] in the States, three of us in Sweden, and one in Belgium… We'll see what happens since we only talked about it."

Last month, DISMEMBER bassist Richard Cabeza was asked by RichardMetalFan if there is any possibility of fans getting some new music from the band soon. He responded: "For sure, man. It's happening. When, I can't tell you right now. But we have talked about writing new music. We are writing new music individually, but we haven't started to write music together as a band. We have been so busy with playing shows the past couple of years and doing all this other stuff. But I think we're getting closer and closer. Let's see what happens next year in 2025. Maybe we'll actually start putting some songs together. But a hundred percent, a new DISMEMBER album will happen. No doubt, no doubt. But we have very high expectations on ourselves as a band to release a new album."

Last August, Estby was asked by Arto Lehtinen of Metal Rules if it is harder to write new songs because DISMEMBER has a huge legacy. Fred responded: "It's not hard at all. So the thing is, we have a license deal with Nuclear Blast. We have an option to do one or two more albums. Great. We can do whenever we want, which is even more perfect for us. So we can take our time and we're going to take our time because we're not going to release something that is half-assed. We're going to be very critical about [it], especially since it's been such a long time since the last album. And I love the DISMEMBER album that I'm not even on that was released in 2008. It's a great album. If you're going to release an album now as a reunited band in two thousand and fucking twenty-three, twenty-four, you're going to have to try to match like ever before. You cannot be shy of that. We're going to be very critical about it and that's going to take some time because we don't live in the same cities like we hang out every day."

In July 2022, it was announced that DISMEMBER had once again partnered with Nuclear Blast Records, the label that released the band's 1990 demo, "Reborn In Blasphemy", their 1991 debut album, "Like An Everflowing Stream", as well as the four records that would follow. In celebration of this announcement, a fully remastered version of "Like An Everflowing Stream" was made available on streaming services worldwide after it had been absent for quite some time.

"Like An Everflowing Stream" — hailed by many as one of the best death metal albums of all time — was the first entry in a reissue campaign of the entire DISMEMBER back catalog, which was recently remastered from the original albums.

Between 1988 and 2011, DISMEMBER earned a notorious reputation as the "MOTÖRHEAD of death metal", through eight classic albums and furious live shows around the globe. The band was formed by Robert Sennebäck, David Blomqvist and Fred Estby in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1988 and has long since been regarded as one of the originators of the trademark Swedish death metal sound, next to other pioneering bands such as ENTOMBED, GRAVE and UNLEASHED. DISMEMBER recorded a couple of independently released demos before their 1990 demo cassette, "Reborn In Blasphemy", with Matti Kärki on vocals and ENTOMBED's Nicke Andersson taking over most lead guitar parts, got picked up for a wider release by Nuclear Blast Records. In 1991, "Like An Everflowing Stream" saw the light of day, which was recorded by Tomas Skogsberg at the now-legendary Sunlight Studios, and featured Richard Cabeza (UNANIMATED) on bass. DISMEMBER released its acclaimed sophomore album, "Indecent & Obscene", in 1993, which to this day remains their most successful output. Three more albums would follow on Nuclear Blast, "Massive Kiling Capacity" (1995),"Death Metal" (1997) and "Hate Campaign" (2000),until the band decided to switch labels. They released two more albums, "Where Ironcrosses Grow" (2004, Karmageddon Records) and "The God That Never Was" (2005, Regain) before Estby announced his departure for family reasons in 2007. Their last album, "Dismember", followed in 2008 and the band officially broke up in 2011. After an eight-year hiatus, the band's original lineup reunited for a 30th-anniversary gig at Scandinavia Death Fest in October 2019, performing together for the first time in over 20 years.

DISMEMBER is:

Fred Estby (Drums)
David Blomqvist (Guitars)
Robert Sennebäck (Guitars)
Matti Karki (Vocals)
Richard Cabeza (Bass)