At the end of July, UK poetic black metal band Shadowflag will travel to a festival site deep in the Carpathian Mountain range in Western Ukraine. It is here that they will find one of the most exciting music events in Europe that is held annually in a country struggling with division and warfare. Carpathian Alliance Music Festival has seen a whole host of bands with global stature pass across the stage in recent years – including Behemoth, Watain, Blind Guardian and Immortal to name a few.
The 2017 line up is topped by Norwegian black thrash kings Aura Noir and highly popular extreme metal depressives, Shining. And it is also here that Shadowflag will become only the second UK band ever to play the main stage – the other being Anaal Nathrakh.
Having recently released their third album, ‘The Delusion Machine’, the band has already attached far greater significance to their Carpathian Alliance appearance than simply performing at another metal festival. ‘The Delusion Machine’ explores the concept that there is a tangible and terrifying emptiness at the centre of everything we know.
JJ Flames had this to say, “This isn’t a new concept but society generally covers it over with some kind of meaning or some greater purpose in life. It has become a component of the whole – or at least until mankind chooses to exploit that futility as is happening in countries such as Ukraine right now. When the global muscles of political instability and international insecurity flex and clash in the ways that they recently have, the life of the individual becomes meaningless. It is as if they have been pushed into the void that they had tried so hard to ignore. The machine spins on as the delusions will fly, and mankind will blindly run and run after them until they think they understand.”
This imminent appearance of Shadowflag at Carpathian Alliance will be a very poignant and moving experience for the band. Not only are they extremely proud to be representing all that is great about the UK extreme metal scene in a country that has had limited exposure to it, they also feel that they will capture something very important when they stand on that stage – something that everyone there will be looking for. And something that they will be able to give back to every single person who stands beneath those imposing mountains… should they choose to accept it.
The Delusion Machine’ is available on digipak from shadowflag.bigcartel.com or to download on Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon Mp3, Deezer, Spotify, Google Play and Tidal. Can’t get to Ukraine for Carpathian Alliance? Shadowflag have a number of UK shows booked over the coming months, including The Blackwood Gathering in October. Head over to Facebook for a full list of dates: www.facebook.com/shadowflag13.
