Doom Sessions Vol. VII with Crippe Gustafsson
Art: Robert Sammelin
Endtime started in 2015 under Saturniids’ to create apocalyptical and earth-shattering musical compositions. That name didn’t suit our needs or personality, so in 2019, we changed it to the more fitting name ‘Endtime’. We are the ambassadors for no tomorrow—Endtime fosters exploitation movies and aesthetics from the 1980’s. Think Giallo, Carpenter or Cronenberg. We don’t believe in the groove, and we don’t believe in the swing. We turn the amps up to 11; we cause ruptured eardrums and severe dysentery with our sub-atomic frequencies. Endtime is the music equivalent to a nuclear blast. Endtime hails from the entertainment capital of the world – Uppsala. Endtime plays Doom Metal but takes cues and mixes up influences from the progressive horror music genre combined with the legendary heritage of Black Sabbath. Endtime features current and ex-members from bands such as Obnoxious Youth, Undergång, Taiwaz, Krusus and Noctum.
Our latest album is called ‘Impending Doom.’ The lyrics are written as horror movie taglines/plots with apocalyptic themes highly relevant to the impending doom we face as human beings. The lyrics also deal with the end of the world as both the real threat of mass destruction by nuclear arms, the metaphorical threat of cosmic doom as well as the human mind or the lack of it on this planet.
Our music is based on something that Black Sabbath laid the foundation for in 1970, but we have removed a lot of grooviness and focused more on the crushing heaviness of the music. The music is slow, soul-crushingly heavy and ominous, devoid of swing, groove and happiness. This is a soundtrack to the funeral of humanity, something that we would like to call a musical laxative for a constipated society.
We all come from different musical backgrounds and upbringings, but somehow, we all became ambassadors of no tomorrow. We instantly connected when sharing our views on the future, or maybe the lack of it, since we feel the future is doomed. It’s okay to say we have been since the world as we know it fell apart during the creation of our record’ I’ ending Doom’. ‘Maybe it’s a coincidence? We want to think that it is. Doom Metal, to us, is the perfect vessel for expressing our messages—the ideal soundtrack to the sheer negativity we all carry daily. As you said, doom metal is associated with depressive and pessimistic views about life, and other styles of music just sound way too cheerful.
Narcotics aren’t something we oppose or encourage as a band. It’s relevant to the message we are trying to convey. It’s something highly associated with depressive and negative thoughts, mainly to dampen the negativity we all feel in some way, but we embrace negativity. It’s something to be proud of. It means you have seen the world as it is. The crushing weight of everyday life has a much more significant impact on music and our attitudes. Reality surpasses poetry. Narcotics are there to create some false happiness, and that’s not really what we are about.
We all have in common that we worship the Black Sabbath, which led us on a path where we all would become fans of the doom-metal genre. We had no other music to turn to when we decided what music to play. We had no choice.
We are all social outcasts; we didn’t show up in the worst circumstances or had the worst parents. We just felt out of touch with the world from the start; we were never’ n’ mal’ k’ ds, and obviously, we carried emotions that linked us to everything we do today. It isn’t easy to pinpoint any events that influenced us, but we could highlight when we first met at the beginning of 2002 as a pinnacle. As individuals, we sure influenced each other, maybe not in a good way, but in a crucial way.
Musically, we could mention two things as main inspirations, and those, of course, are Black Sabbath and Italian horror movie soundtracks. But the primary influence comes from everything but music. From embracing the impending doom, we are all facing rather than being afraid of it or denying it.
