Sentence with Emile Duputié
Art by AMMO
Bio: Riding across Europe since 2011, Beyond The Styx is inspired by a dark and violent musical universe. At the crossroads between Hardcore, Metal and Thrash crossover, the French quintet has unleashed the crowds on more than 250 gigs alongside renowned bands such as Terror, Nasty, and Malevolence. Following the release of his new studio effort: ‘Sentence’ (recorded and produced by Christian Donaldson: Despised Icon, Get The Shot, Cryptopsy…), the French juggernaut expresses a manifest, authentic, incisive desire to open minds to the evils that have been gnawing away for too long a most decadent modern society. ‘Is our history an eternal beginning? ‘That’s the challenge of Beyond The Styx: Embody more than the flapping of a butterfly wing. Breathe the storm of change! Armed with a hardened line-up, BTSTYX drives the point by highlighting with ‘Sentence’ the maddest torrent of live energy.
It’s always challenging to write and describe your music. Everyone should be able to form their idea without stereotyping it. To answer your question, we practice a particularly dark and violent Metallic Hardcore in the image of our world. This means that specific topics should and can be shared in a raw artistic expression while supporting meaningful messages. Our music is like an authentic cathartic frenzy. It does us as much harm as it does good, and apparently, for our audience too.
Our new record, ‘Sentence’, is undoubtedly the most violent album we have ever written and our most significant success. However, we composed this album in a special context since Victor left his place as lead guitarist to Arnaud just before covid. An album that we had to write as a real band, all together in our rehearsal room, sometimes clandestinely (I can finally say it!) but also remotely via video (my worst experience!). Anyway, we had to surprise ourselves and show self-sacrifice to compose this album and be able to record it (after three postponements) in France with Christian Donaldson.
My lyrics have evolved, mainly without a chorus; by the way, this is a fact. Sometimes I write instinctively under the influence of emotion, and other times in a more thoughtful way on more sensitive topics. All my lyrics are mainly inspired by a topical, social or sometimes more personal theme that I try to develop in a more direct way, although sometimes still metaphorical. I like poetry and the mythological and dark imagery that can be given to things through a song, whether talking about the fatality of life, climate crisis or apocalypse.
What inspires me? The life. The death. Mostly. I am quite sensitive beyond appearances. Unfortunately, my professional experience as a social worker and the various facts we read in the newspapers daily is an inexhaustible sources of inspiration. Beyond this sensitivity which I try to make strength, I think that in a meeting, a few words can change everything for someone. If one day someone tells me that our band has been able to bring something positive to this shitty world, however tiny it may be… I’ll be like: ‘Damn, man! This is it!’
The artwork is a representation of our future. Like the vision of a youth prey to its demons: dominate the chaos or let be dominated by it. See Cerberus here as the symbol of the guardian of the underworld held on a leash by a teenager under the moonlight of the new judgment day sky. Our music reflects our world. Like this one, it comes to a turning point that we wanted to materialize artistically, both musically and graphically. As with our previous album, ‘Stiigma’, I wanted AMMO (the artwork of our last albums) to materialize with his style. I would never ask an artist to ‘travestying himself’ for our band but rather to interpret an idea for us. In a way, I am the author; you are the interpreter; I give you carte blanche from a theme. AMMO has thus perfectly interpreted the thing in its way: a true apocalyptic masterpiece! I like monochrome and contrasting things in general. I wouldn’t say I like half-hearted things, literally or figuratively. It turns out that AMMO particularly excels in this graphic genre. The ideal meeting! AMMO contact: leammo@gmail.com
I’m reasonably mystical, although not a practitioner, which can appear contradictory (human nature, isn’t it?). I also consider myself fundamentally humanist, although fatalistic, to believe that this contrasting side goes beyond the artistic work of our band.
Step by step, even I believe it could hardly have been otherwise, being the son of a Jimmy Hendrix fan father. I listened to vinyl records before knowing how to read and write. I didn’t know what I was listening to; we won’t lie to each other. But the artworks of the vinyl covers of the 70s were often an invitation to go beyond things… Then one thing led to another; my curiosity for imagery led me to musical ways I would never have suspected existed. At a difficult adolescent period when asserting one’s difference from the norm was a source of rejection from everyone… Thus were born unforgettable artistic encounters worthy of real encounters of the 3rd type: Marilyn Manson, Korn, Meshuggah, Converge, and Hatebreed. I finally had the impression that life took on a little more meaning every day by discovering an underestimated and wrongly stigmatized art, like the light finally discovering its part of the shadow, invisible until then.
Music is a form of expression that can surpass everything, unite everything and revolutionize everything; it’s more than the mainstream music industry would have us believe than entertainment. This is also why we remember true fallible, honest, and authentic artists. As such, for me, it’s an experience much closer to the spiritual and the indescribable than anything else, at least when it comes to extreme music.
wwww.beyondthestyx.com
